Great Lakes Fishery Commission

FishPass Community Engagement

Community and stakeholder input and engagement has been essential to the evolution of the conceptual model, integrating FishPass into the City Master Plan, and working with the City Commissions and Staff about use and design of the space supporting the project. Feedback from all community engagement activities has been actively incorporated into design elements of FishPass and current monitoring efforts.

January 07, 2020 - The FishPass team hosted two informational open houses (see poster boards) at the Traverse City Government Center to provide updates on planning, design, and permitting of FishPass and to address outstanding questions about the project. More than 200 individuals engaged representatives from the following project partners: City of Traverse City, Downtown Development Authority, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Lower Boardman Leadership Team, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and engineer of record, AECOM.

October 30, 2019 - The FishPass team provided draft written responses to 207 questions raised as part of a two-part public forum hosted by the Lower Boardman Leadership Team of the Traverse City Downtown Development Authority. The team also clarified several remaining questions in a full set of responses.

February 12, 2019 - The FishPass team hosted an informational open house at the Traverse City Government Center between 4-6 PM to provide an update on planning, design, and permitting of FishPass. The public had an opportunity to talk one-on-one with representatives from the following project partners: Great Lakes Fishery Commission, MI Department of Natural Resources, City of Traverse City, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, US Army Corps of Engineers, and engineer of record, AECOM. The open house was followed immediately by a public comment session hosted by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy concerning the Joint Permit Application.

May 30-31, 2018 - The FishPass team engaged the Traverse City and surrounding area angling community in a two-night workshop to identify and begin to address angler concerns and issues regarding Boardman River fisheries as they relate to FishPass design and ongoing monitoring and assessment.

  • The first night, which was open to the public, generated via a panel of angler group representatives, an exhaustive list of angler concerns and issues. The items were synthesized and organized into ten categories by the FishPass team and discussed with angler organizations’ leadership (i.e., Focus Group) on the second night of the workshop.

    View the workshop proceedings. All discussion from the open forum and the focus group was documented and the FishPass team provided responses to issues, and identified action items related to each issue.

    Angler Panel Consisted of the following members: Mike Coonan and Ted Wendling (Brook Trout Coalition), Michael Sipkoski and Chad Brown (Trout Unlimited – Adams Chapter), Bryan Burroughs (Trout Unlimited – Michigan Chapter), Dennis Eade (Traverse City Steelheaders chapter of Michigan Steelhead and Salmon Fisherman’s Association), and Ryan Matuzak and Wes Newberry (Grand Traverse Area Sport Fishing Association).

October 10, 2017 - The FishPass team assisted the City of Traverse City in hosting an open house to seek public input on the design of FishPass.