The Huron River Water Trail winds through automotive and labor history, as well, being located in the heart of Henry Ford's legacy. Ford's Village Industry concept was realized along the Huron River in the s in the communities of Milford and Ypsilanti. Looking to the future, the five largest communities on the Huron River Water Trail are on their way to becoming Trail Towns. Trail Towns are trailside and gateway communities that are true recreational destinations.
The following communities listed from upstream to downstream have embraced their spots on the river and are tapping the full potential of their recreational assets to generate economic benefits: - Village of Milford, Oakland County - Village of Dexter, Washtenaw County - City of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County - City of Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County - City of Flat Rock, Wayne County The Huron River Water Trail is the first water trail to employ the Trail Town framework comprehensively along its course.
For more information and current conditions, contact the trail manager listed below. For questions, suggestions, and corrections to information listed on the website, contact American Trails. Hudson River. Photo by Nicole Mills. About Us Donate. Sign up for eNews. Contact Information For more information and current conditions, contact the trail manager listed below.
Reviews No reviews are available. Both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are within the Huron River watershed ; additionally, the river supplies most of the Ann Arbor's municipal water supply. The river runs through the area on its way from its headwaters, to the north in Oakland and Livingston Counties, to Lake Erie.
Designated a Country Scenic Natural River, the Huron is a popular site for canoeing and other recreations, with numerous parks along its length - within the City of Ann Arbor, there is a greenway of parks and trails running along the length of the river.
The river's lower portion has long suffered contamination from industrial facilities in and around Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti; the upper sections have more recently been strained by stormwater runoff from the rapid development of farmland and natural areas. Kayaks on the Huron River approaching Geddes Pond. The riverfront is largely made up of parks, including Riverside Park and Frog Island Park , and current or former industrial facilities.
The Huron also serves as an formal border within the city of Ypsilanti: areas west of the city exist in the zip code, with areas east being covered under the code. Many of the industrial sites along or near the River in Ann Arbor and Ypsi are being redeveloped, though work is often impeded by past soil contamination, and some of these projects have been criticized for their insensitivity to historic structures or perceptions of fiscal mismanagement. The destruction of the Peninsular Paper factory for apartments and the Water Street Redevelopment Project , in Ypsilanti, and the Broadway Village project in Ann Arbor's Lower Town are examples of controversial redevelopments along the river.
Several segments of this trail system already exist, including the entire length within the City of Ann Arbor, and most of the segements in the City of Ypsilanti and between the two cities. Throughout the whole system, at least ninety-seven dams segment the river system. This number does not include undocumented dams. In the following section, we divide the course of the Huron River into five geographically defined sections. This is simply a convenience; it is a practical way to describe the geography of the river and its watershed.
However, the boundaries imposed by these divisions are man-made images and have little to do with the ecological distinctions found in nature. It also underscores the impact that human beings have on the natural environment of the river and the watershed. Section I : Upper Huron. In the upper half of this section, the Andersonville Swamp is the dominant feature of the landscape. The river is shallow and narrow, with many lakes punctuating a rolling and often hilly terrain. Land use within this drainage area is mostly rural residential, with clusters of urban development at Walled Lake and Milford.
There are two major impoundments bodies of water created by dams at Milford and Kensington MetroPark. Length: The upper reaches of this section are primarily natural and undeveloped. The river is relatively wide, yet shallow, and the southern stretch of Section II is often called the Chain of Lakes.
Section III is full of woodlots, fields, steeply wooded slopes, and wetland margins. The area is renowned for recreational opportunities as it is a destination for world class fishing, canoeing, and kayaking, with notable rapids at Hudson Mills and Delhi MetroParks. Due to its natural beauty, the entire stretch has been designated Natural River District.
Mill Creek, the largest tributary to the river, drains square miles of agricultural land and enters the Huron River near the Village of Dexter. Within this distance, most development activities require a permit, including building houses, decks, stairs, and other structures, cutting vegetation, and splitting the property into smaller parcels. Seven large dams were built to power mills and create impoundments.
Industry grew in this urban area using the river for water and waste removal and the rail service is situated in the river valley with historic stock yards and industrial storage. While scarred by historical pollution, water quality in the river has improved in the last 25 years and there has been a resurgence in reconnecting to the river. Communities are embracing the riverfront through redevelopment of industrial and commercial properties, an active Huron River Water Trail for recreational users, and a robust park system for cultural and historical events.
In this section, the Huron River achieves a mature river form; it is very wide and slow-moving. There is an abundance of wetlands along its banks and the entire drainage area is flat. Below this point, the drainage area narrows rapidly, with land and water merging into marshlands that nurture a rich variety of fish and fowl.
Two international migratory flyways intersect over Pointe Mouillee. At the mouth of the Huron, diked and drained land supports productive traditional agriculture. Throughout this section, one can sense the presence of a larger body of water Lake Erie , a longer history of human habitation, and the influence of the river on the lives of the people who live here. In the Paleozoic Era of geologic time, the North American continent was inundated by ancient seas.
Over several periods spanning to million years ago, these marine environments deposited a variety of sedimentary bedrock — sandstones, shales, carbonate-rich rocks, rock salt, and gypsum — in the Michigan basin. At the onset of the Great Ice Age approximately two million years ago , continental glaciers from the Hudson Bay area advanced into the Michigan region, and the existing bedrock guided two major lobes of glacial ice that became part of the Wisconsin Glacier. As the glacial climate began to wane, and the rate of melting increased, the glacier receded and the thinner ice zone between the lobes began to waste away.
Around 14, years ago, the earth below this zone was exposed, meltwater streams began to flow, and the first portion of what is now the Huron River Watershed emerged. When the climate warmed, the ice mass melted and receded, leaving behind the more subtle land forms we call ground moraines. In the path of their retreat, the glaciers left a rich and varied debris of sand, gravel, and clay known as glacial till.
The end moraines, in particular, are areas where glacial processes deposited very large quantities of rock and soil material of various sizes in one place.
The melting glaciers also created glacial outwash plains where the meltwater runoff sorted soils into layers of similarly sized particles, including sand and gravel — particles that facilitate the rapid infiltration of surface water to groundwater aquifers and stream systems. Both glacial outwash plains and the coarse- to medium-textured end moraines described above characterize much of the Huron River Watershed.
The earliest ancestor of the Huron River was a glacial stream that appeared in the vicinity of modern southeastern Livingston County and flowed westward and southward ultimately to join the Illinois and Mississippi River systems. During the subsequent phase, the evolution of the Huron River and its watershed was defined largely by the fluctuating levels of the various lakes in the Erie basin.
For most of the past 10, years, the Huron River and its watershed have remained more or less in geologic equilibrium. This basin is characterized by rolling hills and a well-defined pattern of tributaries, lakes, and wetlands.
Beginning at Ypsilanti, the lower basin approximately square miles is narrow and flat, resting as it does in the ancestral bed of Lake Erie.
This sharply narrowing lower basin contains an ever-widening Huron River, one that moves more slowly toward its point of entry into the great Lake Erie. The Huron River Watershed is home to a rich array of animal and plant life, including over 90 species of fish and 34 species of reptiles and amphibians. Smallmouth bass thrive in the main branch of the Huron and in the warmer tributaries.
Macroinvertebrates living in the water provide important indications of water quality and river health. Common mammals include raccoon, mink, muskrat, beaver, and deer.
Full-time and part-time resident bird species include the great blue heron, a variety of wild ducks, and numerous songbirds. The watershed is an important stopover for migrating bald eagles, peregrine falcons, Canada geese, ospreys, warblers, and sandhill cranes. Common woodland trees include oak, hickory, beech, and maple.
Tamarack swamps, as well as black ash, elm and other hardwood swamps, are found in the western region of the watershed, while wet prairies of sedges and grasses are more typical of the eastern region. Unfortunately, the watershed also has become home to a number of invasive species — plants and animals that are non-native to an ecosystem and whose introduction, in addition to being a human health hazard, is likely to cause economic and environmental damage.
The Great Lakes provide a mixing zone for tropical and polar air masses. The southwest part of Michigan can receive between inches of precipitation annually. In comparison, the Huron River basin in southeast Michigan is located in a relatively dry area and receives an average of 30 inches of precipitation annually. Seasonal precipitation patterns are fairly stable because the warmer temperatures tend to hold more moisture in the air. A floodplain is a land area immediately adjacent to a river, stream, or creek.
It is an area that may be covered with water after heavy rainstorms. The floodplain collects and holds the excess water from storms, allowing it to be released slowly into the river system and to seep into groundwater aquifers, the underground layers of soil, gravel, or porous stone that yield and carry water.
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