Big Rapids, MI (October 2026)—Sometimes a river tells you right away that you did the right thing.

This summer, crews were removing a dam that had blocked trout from moving up Buckhorn Creek. Before the work was even finished, they sent a small amount of water through the creek’s newly restored channel to test it.

The trout responded almost immediately, swimming upstream.

For Paul Haan, Executive Director of the Muskegon River Watershed Assembly (MRWA), that moment captured what his organization is working toward across one of Michigan’s largest watersheds: removing barriers and reconnecting waterways that have been separated for generations.

Rivers naturally connect. But over time, dams, culverts and other infrastructure have divided the Muskegon River watershed into smaller pockets, preventing fish and other aquatic species from moving freely and altering natural stream flow, water temperature and sediment movement.

With a two-year grant from the Walters Family Foundation, MRWA is working to restore some of those connections.

At Buckhorn Creek, that work is already making a difference. The $2.2 million project removed a dam a few hundred yards upstream from the Muskegon River, where the state stocks about 20,000 brown and rainbow trout each year. Those fish can now reach the creek’s cold-water refuge, giving more of them a chance to survive from year to year and reproduce naturally.

Farther up the watershed, the Rustford Dam divides the upper Little Muskegon River, blocking passage between cold-water tributaries that support wild brook trout. Removing it would reconnect more than 137 miles of habitat.

It would reconnect people with the river, too. Residents already paddle the upper Little Muskegon, but the dam forces them to leave the water. Without that barrier, Haan said, they could travel much farther.

“The recreational resource will double in size,” he said.

The stakes go beyond recreation. Haan describes the Muskegon as a watershed on the threshold between warm-, cool- and cold-water fisheries. As the climate changes, protecting cold-water tributaries and the refuge they provide becomes increasingly important.

Before removal can begin at Rustford, MRWA needs to complete engineering, secure permits and raise funds. Walters Family Foundation support helps move that early work forward.

"If you have a shovel-ready project, the federal government, state government and many other groups want to get involved," Haan said. "But somebody's got to get it there. It's got to go from a good idea in somebody's conversation over coffee to a doable project."

The grant also supports a Stream Crossing Assessment Tool. Trained volunteers and interns will use it to survey culverts and other barriers and help MRWA identify where restoration can do the most good across the watershed.

It is painstaking work with the potential to transform the watershed.

Haan points to Michigan’s “Water-Winter Wonderland” license plate as a reminder of how deeply water is tied to the state’s identity. Michigan's rivers are still here, he said, even if generations of development have changed them. Some of that infrastructure is still needed. Some of it has outlived its usefulness.

"Hindsight's 20/20," he said. "We can do better. And so let's do it."

At Buckhorn Creek, the fish were ready all along. They only needed the river to open.