Crews will start removing muck from Lake St. Clair in the fall

People who’ve been putting up with thick, smelly clumps of algae in Lake St. Clair may get some relief soon.

Macomb County has contracted two marine excavators to start removing muck from parts of the Lake in the fall. Each needs to get permits from the state and federal governments, which have jurisdiction over the lake.

The organisms, known collectively as Microseira wollei, have been growing on the bottom of the lake since about the mid 2010s. 

Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller says they start by forming tiny balls about as big as a person’s thumbnail.

“And when you have an onshore breeze, all these little balls roll up onto the shore, which doesn’t sound like much until there are literally billions of them,” she says. 

The algae form mats on the water that can be several feet thick. Miller says it keeps growing and begins to vegetate over time.

“It almost looks like land, but it’s not,” she says. “Now if that’s happened to your boat well, whether you’re a resident, a residential property owner, or whether you’re a marina owner, you can imagine the negative impact.”

The three-year pilot project will focus on three specific areas where water is stagnant. One is near Veterans Memorial Park in St. Clair Shores. The other two are Campau Bay and the marina at Hidden Cove condominiums in Harrison Township.

The Michigan Legislature appropriated $880,000 to begin removing the muck, which officials will study over the next three years. Miller says she hopes to find a long-term solution.

“We all know as soon as we dredge it, it will begin to come back,” she says. “But will it come back in a month, a year? We’re sort of in the learning process.”

Republican state Representative Alicia St. Germaine and Democratic state Senator Kevin Hertel worked together to put the project in the state budget. Miller says that kind of bipartisan support is critical to the cleanup’s success.

“The water doesn’t know if it’s a Republican or a Democrat or an independent or Green Party or whatever,” she says. “It’s just something that all of us live here, we all have to solve this together.”

Miller says it’ll take a lot more money and time to remove and manage algae in the lake. She hopes state and federal agencies step up to protect the waterway.