The Au Sable Institute has been awarded a Maintenance Grant through the MiCorps Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program. Funds will allow Au Sable to continue their monitoring efforts on the Upper Manistee River and its watershed.

“This grant will make sure we can continue our ongoing work to monitor and protect the health of the Upper Manistee River watershed,” said Paul Wiemerslage, the project manager at Au Sable. “The recent discovery of the New Zealand mud snail in the headwaters of the Manistee River, makes stream monitoring efforts especially important. We need trained observers and volunteers to keep a lookout for this destructive species to help inform our response and control its spread.”

Mi Corps was established in 2004 by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to engage the public in collecting water quality data for use in water resources management and protection programs. The program provides grants to enable local governments and nonprofits to conduct volunteer-based water quality and stream habitat monitoring through benthic macroinvertebrate surveys and habitat assessments.