Goodbye culverts, hello timber bridge over the Crystal River

From staff reports

“Shooting the tube” through the Crystal River culverts under County Road 675 is now an experience of the past.

This month the Grand Traverse Engineering & Construction (GTEC) and the Leelanau County Road Commission will remove the three culverts and replace the road above them with an 80-foot timber bridge. The work should be complete by the end of November, according to GTEC construction manager Ken Ockert. S. Dunns Farm Road will be closed to thru traffic and rerouted around Big Glen Lake for the duration of the project.

Ockert added that a cofferdam and stream diversion will be used to allow for the existing culvert removal and new piles, abutments, and bridge installation. These efforts will require temporary sheet piles to be installed at the onset of the project, with their removal before final grade establishment. Large rip-rap will be installed for stream bank stabilization with roadbed construction to follow, bordered by new guardrail.

Labor Day Monday, Sept. 2, was the last day for kayakers, canoers and paddleboarders to float through the culverts. Their removal is bittersweet for the staff at Crystal River Outfitters, which has sent thousands of people down the river in the past three decades.

“It’s fun to look back at the last 30 years and think that the term ‘shoot the tube’ has become synonymous with Crystal River Outfitters kayak trips down the Crystal River,” said Katy Wiesen, who co-owns the business together with her husband Matt. “Shooting the tube became not only an annual family tradition but also led to many variations on stickers, hats, t-shirts and more that are soon to be a piece of history.

“Change is never easy but we are confident the new timber frame bridge being installed will be a great improvement to the Crystal River and are excited to showcase the improvements when we re-open on May 17, 2025.”

The culverts removal is one of four steam crossing improvements scheduled along CR 675. Phase one was completed last fall at the outlet between Tucker Lake and Fisher Lake. The final two phases will happen in 2025 where the Crystal River crosses under M-22 near the Mill.

Paddlers who wish to use the river this fall are encouraged to put in downstream of the project area, said Ockert. They may park on the downstream side of CR 675 to offload boats. If paddlers choose to put in at the Fisher Road launch and float down to the project closure area, they will be required to paddle back upstream to their launch point. This roundtrip takes about two hours to complete. Paddlers will not be permitted to portage across the construction area.

The multimillion-dollar bridge and river restoration effort is the result of a collaboration between the Road Commission, the Conservation Resource Alliance, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The project has been years in the making. The culverts are near the end of their lives, said Road Commission manager Brendan Mullane.

“They not failing tomorrow, but they’re going to fail and need to be replaced.”

Grand Traverse Band restoration specialist Brett Fessell explained that the Crystal River is a transportation corridor for wildlife.

“Fish, otters, turtles, a wide spectrum of wildlife species use these rivers as corridors or highways to move through the landscape,” Fessell said. “By forcing the river through a series of small pipes, you exclude those things that move along the riverbanks and force fish to battle unnaturally concentrated, high-velocity water flows. And most species of fish in the Great Lake region are not strong swimmers.”

By restricting water flows like small dams, the Crystal River culverts have also altered stream geometry and morphology while preventing the natural movement of sediment down the river. Forced through these undersized culverts, the water speeds up and shoots through these metal tubes at high velocity, scouring out plunge pools at the downriver end of the pipes.

To learn more about the collaborative effort to replace the Crystal River culverts, read this in-depth story from September 2023 by Joe VanderMeulen, executive director of NatureChange.org—an online magazine devoted to conversations about conservation and climate.