Protecting an “Invisible” Resource

Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council is focused on science, advocacy, restoration, and public engagement

The Little Traverse Watershed is a popular place for families to visit the beach and enjoy swimming. However, at a certain beach, a flock of geese kept coming into the grassy mode area, which caused E. coli closures of the beach and park.

The community banded together, thanks to the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, and worked with the township to install a shoreline buffer to stop the geese from going into the grass. During the summer of 2025, a group of volunteers installed a goose barrier with the hopes of stopping the introduction of geese waste into the local waters.

The Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council spearheads multiple projects, like creating such shoreline buffers, in northwest Michigan with the mission of protecting lakes, streams, wetlands, and groundwater in the Great Lakes Basin—often referred to as the “tip of the mitt” region. This region includes about 3,000 miles of river, over 30 inland lakes, and six major watersheds.

“Water is one of those invisible resources to protect. And it’s at the base of everything—it flows underneath your house!” explains Heather Huffstutler, executive director of the Watershed Council. “We often take it for granted, and it’s really easy to take it for granted here in northern Michigan. That’s why our mission to educate folks about the importance of water quality and the importance of protection of our water resources is vital.”

Building Public Awareness

The Watershed Council has four pillars: community education, governance and advocacy for local policies and enforcements, water quality and research, and restoration.

Education is an area that has significantly grown in the last few years, thanks in part to the organization’s long-standing high school stream monitoring program and the new Tucker Harris Watershed Discovery Center.

“The Discovery Center opened in June 2024 in downtown Petoskey. It’s open to the public daily,” shares Huffstutler. “We see walk-in traffic, but we hold a lot of field trips, and we can build a program specifically for a group or a class to experience some of what it is to experience a watershed scene up close. There are two fish tanks, one is a native, inland lake tank, and the second is a Great Lakes tank where we’ve got a lake sturgeon and some lake whitefish. We also have a stream tank, so you can get a cross-section of what a northern Michigan stream might look like. It’s an experience to help others understand what it is to live and play in a watershed, and how all our actions have consequences.”

Thankfully, Huffstutler and her team believe that the northern Michigan waters are still quite healthy—none of them have any water quality warnings.

“We’re lucky in that we don’t see [water quality warnings] on a regular basis. Those sorts of warnings are not a constant here,” Huffstutler says. “The challenges that we see to water quality are things like the flood events we saw this spring and the ice storm that we saw last spring. All those storms and the storm damage add nutrients to our water systems, and in those natural river systems and lakes, additional nutrients is usually not a great thing.”

The Impact of Severe Weather

The ice storm in 2025 and the April 2026 flooding are two events that immediately affected NoMi residents—from flooded septic systems to flooded drinking water wells to downed woody debris in the waterways—but their long-term effects on the water systems are yet to be determined and most likely won’t be fully apparent for another two to three years.

“Of course, when there is flooding of septic systems and drinking water wells, there are public health concerns that we have to monitor with our health departments,” says Huffstutler. “Then we also have an increase in personal property in the waterways that was never in the waterways before, and it’s all incredibly unfortunate. We’ll be monitoring over the next several years to see what this past spring really did in terms of water quality.”

Inland lake water quality monitoring includes looking at factors like water clarity (which is done using a Secchi disc to see how far down into the water one can still see the disc), water turbidity (how much sediment is floating around in the water column), water pH, nitrogen and chlorophyll in the water, and in some special circumstances, conductivity and phosphorus.

Drastic weather patterns are the biggest cause of water nutrient changes, making climate change the number one threat to waterways.

“It’s not an emerging threat because it’s actually front and center,” Huffstutler explains. “We are trying to focus on the fact that the more resilience we can build into our communities and to our, not just protected lands, but to our own homes, no matter where we are, the better off we will be. With climate change comes water level changes, invasive species, and pressure changes to our forest and wetland ecosystems, and that’s going to change the way we need to manage all these systems together.”

In light of recent storms, the Watershed Council will be holding workshops on five inland lakes, including Mullet Lake, Black Lake, Burt Lake, a spot either on Pickerel Lake or Crooked Lake, and then a spot on the Elk River Chain of Lakes.

The goal of those workshops is to bring together the Watershed Council’s staff and its Lake Association partners to talk about shoreline restoration efforts and how to create shorelines that are resilient to future storms and their impacts.

Taking Action for Local Waters

Huffstutler says volunteering for stream and lake monitoring is a great way to impact local shorelines and waterways, but there are plenty of other things individuals can do at home to protect Michigan’s freshwater sources.

“If you’re a homeowner in a neighborhood, take a look at where you have a puddle after it rains—where your downspouts are feeding—and install a rain barrel or rain garden that are easy and beautiful and can be reused,” Huffstutler says. “When you’re out visiting a place you love, think about whatever you take into the water or on the water, and take back out with you. Plastics pollution is a really big issue. And try to enjoy the quieter water sports like kayaking, paddleboarding, and swimming.”

The Watershed Council is already focused on the next five years of plans and goals, including being the regional resource for folks who are curious about the state of water quality on lakes, rivers, and streams in the northwest Michigan region. Part of that includes a new website that was revamped to allow individuals to look up any lake or river in the region to see what the state of the water quality is.

“We’re writing annual water quality reports, and we want to make sure that people can use that data,” Huffstutler tells us. “The next thing is using that data to amplify restoration work and research. So, what do we know from that data and how do we make it really work for us?”

She adds that the organization would like to “build stronger relationships with universities and really be engaged in research for freshwater resources moving forward. We’d like to then use that data to address these community challenges so when there is a community education challenge or a community infrastructure challenge, it’s always going to be based on the data and the science that we have. It’s the work of organizations like ours to protect the water resources and make sure that water remains at the top of people’s minds.”

To learn more about the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, visit watershedcouncil.org.

Water Is Life Festival

Mark your calendar! The Water Is Life Festival is an annual event that celebrates our connection to water and brings people together to support its protection. Indigenous women are at the heart of planning and leading the festival, reflecting their traditional role as protectors of water.

As part of Water Is Life Festival weekend, the Watershed Discovery Center will be open with extended hours on Friday, Sept. 4, from 10am-6pm. Stop by to explore hands-on exhibits and educational activities about the Great Lakes, local watersheds, and the plants and animals that call them home.

The festival itself will be held on Saturday, September 5. Learn more at waterislifefestival.org.

Pictured: Bear River, photo courtesy of TOTMWC

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