Plainwell city officials have been discussing possible changes to the Mill Race with state and federal agencies.
City manager Erik Wilson told the city council Monday, May 22, he’d been involved in a few preliminary discussions about the subject.
The environmental officials, Wilson said, were discussing some more cleanups of hot spots of PCBs along the river and near the diversion dam that splits the Mill Race from the river just southeast of the city.
“There’s talk of removing that and placing a more natural diversion there,” Wilson said.
No one should worry about Plainwell’s status as “the Island City” being changed.
“Under no circumstances would we ever support something where the Mill Race dried up,” he said. “This is just talking about it being a little more natural.”
Michigan Department of Natural Resources representatives had said they’d like to see a few changes to make the Mill Race better fish habitat, such as making it so fish could come into the channel from either end.
Wilson said, “They’d like to have a few drops, rather than the one big one, so the fishing could be improved. They say fish won’t go up the Mill Race ever, the way it is.”
The concrete dams at either end, Wilson said, were neither in good shape and he believed the city would be better off getting both replaced with more natural features.
The cost of replacing the concrete dams would be significant, Wilson said, so he was exploring ways for outside funding to take care of that in the discussions.
Wilson said the city had all the riparian rights to the Mill Race.
There was previously a cleanup of PCBs near the diversion dam and the DNR added a place for canoeists and kayakers to easily portage around it in the main channel.
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