KEY POINTS
The Trump administration unexpectedly halted funding for a five-year $20 million conservation and restoration project in 7 northern Michigan counties.
The contract termination left partners with $450,000 in early-stage implementation costs that they financed without the federal support.
What’s occurring in rural northern Michigan is a microcosm of the disruption in environmental programs and practices occurring across the United States.
By Sophie Bird Murphy
When it comes to ending erosion in wild streams, restoring riverbanks, and even dismantling dams to improve habitat, no non-profit in northern Michigan has a stronger record of environmental restoration than the Conservation Resource Alliance.
Established in 1968 as part of a national council of similar regional organizations launched by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Traverse City-based CRA is skilled in rehabilitating impaired waterways and in raising government funds to do the work.
But what the government gives can also be taken away. And that is what CRA is dealing with right now. In June the Trump administration halted funding for a five-year $20 million conservation and restoration project CRA was conducting in 7 northern Michigan counties in partnership with the Tribal Stream and Michigan Fruitbelt Collaborative. Led by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Collaborative’s other partners include the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and the Leelanau Conservancy.
The ambitious project was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2023, and funded in 2024 to restore stream habitats, upgrade aging transportation infrastructure, and protect farmland from encroaching urban development.
The termination of the federal contract left partners with $450,000 in early-stage implementation costs that they were compelled to finance without the federal support. “Seemingly all for nothing,” said D.J. Shook, a biologist and CRA’s senior project manager..
Project partners say it’s not clear yet whether the federal share will be restored. Grand Traverse Band general counsel John F. Petoskey submitted a formal appeal in July asking the U.S.D.A. to reconsider the Collaborative’s contract termination.
With the Grand Traverse Band’s decades-long legacy of conservation work in the region, Petoskey’s hope is that the RCPP funding will be reinstated in 2026, allowing the planned projects to proceed.
What’s occurring in rural northern Michigan is a microcosm of the disruption in environmental programs and practices occurring across the United States as a result of the administration’s impulsive budget cuts. Long running programs to support science, understand the effects of climate change, restore habitat restoration, protect species, and undertake other environmental initiatives have been terminated under the Trump administration’s “America First” governing strategy, a feature of which is mammoth budget cuts.
Suzie Knoll, executive director of the Conservation Resource Alliance, says her organization managed the river restoration portion of the Collaborative project, including improving 29 stream crossings over the next three years. The work has stopped.
“These projects would replace aging or undersized culverts with free-spanning bridges or bottomless culverts to restore natural river flow, improve fish and wildlife habitat, and bolster recreation,” said Knoll. “Our project managers are currently prioritizing sites based on urgency, while simultaneously working to secure alternative funding.”
“The Tribal Stream and Michigan Fruitbelt Collaborative is a unique partnership between organizations with a track record of success in accomplishing what we set out to do,” added Glen Chown, executive director of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. “It is our hope that the funding be restored so that we can continue the vital work outlined in the grant that was approved and funded on its merits. Clean water, food security, and protected lands are valued by everyone.”
Lots To Lose
Among the projects that CRA was forced to halt was two stream restorations in Leelanau County, near the southern shore of Lake Leelanau. In one of the locations the stream bank has eroded so seriously that a sizable hole opened in the roadway close by. CRA had already hired the engineering firm, completed a design for the restoration, and was negotiating with contractors when the U.S.D.A .announced it was curtailing the contract.
“The decision wasn’t cut and dried,” said D.J. Shook, “It wasn’t cancelled. It was paused. We thought things would come back. They haven’t.”
Northwest Michigan has a lot to lose. Of the $20 million awarded to the Collaborative, $5.6 million was allocated to the construction of bridges and other stream crossing improvements that would update defunct rural infrastructure, support jobs, increase road safety, and restore habitats. Farmers also were slated to receive $14.4 million in direct funding for land conservation, generational farm transfer, and farm upgrades.
With the loss of federal funding, an additional $21.3 million in private and state investment to supplement these projects could also be lost.
Melissa Witkowksi, a fish, wildlife, and soil conservationist with the Grand Traverse Band, said the projects are crucial because they preserve Michigan fisheries, wildlife, forests, and agriculture for the benefit of future generations. “The decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations from now,” she says. “Respect the world in which we live as we are borrowing it from our children.”
A History of Successful Projects Threatened
Kim Hayes, farm protection director at the Leelanau Conservancy, said the Collaborative has a strong record of securing more than $37 million in U.S.D.A. funding in previous years. Those dollars were utilized alongside $53 million in partner contributions to complete projects that benefit local communities ecologically, economically, and culturally. Since 2017, similar U.S.D.A. projects in the region have protected over 4,000 acres of farmland, removed 52 aquatic barriers, and opened 290 miles of coldwater streams.
Using this latest round of U.S.D.A. funding, the Leelanau Conservancy planned to help up to 18 local landowners secure perpetual conservation easements on their properties over the next five years. These easements were expected to protect water quality, preserve land for farming and habitat, and maintain open spaces and greenways that contribute to important local economies across eleven townships in Leelanau County.
“We would have secured permanent conservation over approximately 1,800 acres of land, restricting future developments where otherwise land divisions are possible,” says Hayes. “The risk of losing some of the land to developments is very real. The real estate market here is hot and new developments are popping up all over the county.”
In the aftermath of the contract termination, Hayes and her colleagues are working closely with conservation organizations and local landowners to find new avenues for granting the easements. The Leelanau Conservancy currently has a long waitlist of landowners hoping to participate.
“We have so much good work to do and are ready to do it,” says Hayes. “If we need to apply for a new and future award—and succeed in being awarded one—I hope that there is more certainty in the process.”
Featured Image: The Department of Agriculture suddenly ended a $20 million conservation project to protect habitat and farmland, slow erosion, and provide other ecological services in Leelanau and other northern Michigan counties. Along East Alpine Road near Cedar Michigan lies an unfinished project to remediate decaying infrastructure and obstructed flow of Cedar Run Creek. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
Sophie Bird Murphy is a freelance writer and editor with more than a decade of experience contributing to magazines, newspapers, and online publications. In collaboration with Healing Our Waters–Great Lakes Coalition, she writes about the sudden shift in environmental policy and practice now occurring in the Great Lakes region.