Freeman Creek – Pagura Dam
As part of the Great Lakes Fishery Trust’s (GLFT) Big South Habitat Improvement Project, a series of “artificial riffles” were installed to test the feasibility of constructing salmonid spawning sites where they were not naturally occurring. One site was on Freeman Creek near the intersection of Dickinson and 13 mile in Newaygo’s Troy Township. The United States Forest Service (USFS), a partner on the project, constructed a sandtrap immediately upstream to preserve the cobble and rock sills which had been placed. The riffles construction was estimated to be $20,365, a portion of the GLFT $750,000 earlier grant.
A dam built in 1966 to provide irrigation for a private tree farm failed in the spring of 2001; the silt, sediment and debris completely ruined the sandtrap and riffles. The dam was then repaired without a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) permit. The MDEQ issued a Notice of Violation to the owner of the dam, Ms. Denise Pagura, in January of 2002 requesting removal of the dam. Ms. Pagura responded by filing a lawsuit alleging no permit was necessary; resulting in the MDEQ filing a counterclaim alleging violation of Natural Resource Environmental Protection Agency (NREPA). Following numerous legal procedures, a Judgment was finally ordered in February of 2007. It required:
- Owner shall remove the dam
- MDEQ could remove the dam if Owner fails to comply
- Owner was fined for NREPA violations
- Owner was assessed damages for fish kill
- MDEQ was awarded fees and costs
As PMWC and USFS were not Plaintiffs in the matter, they were not awarded damages for the destruction of the sandtraps and riffles.
In a final Judgment in June 2008, the Court ordered the dam to be removed within 180 days. It also placed a Judgment Lien on the Pagura property (value of $95,127), but Ms. Pagura’s attorney appealed the Judgment. The Michigan Court of Appeals in February, 2010, rejected her challenge to the order to remove the dam. In April of 2010, Ms. Pagura took her appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to the Circuit Court.
To date the issue is still yet unresolved. PMWC continues to fight for the dam’s removal and damages.