The Watershed Center has developed a Protection Plan for the Grand Traverse Bay Watershed area. The Plan summarizes existing water quality conditions in and around the Bay and makes recommendations about how to improve and protect our world class resource.

In January 2002, The Watershed Center became a member of the Waterkeeper Alliance and inaugurated the Grand Traverse Baykeeper® program.

The Watershed Center has recently developed an online, interactive Regional Water Quality Database for the Grand Traverse Bay Watershed which is a storehouse of available water quality data for the entire watershed.

The database contains both current and historical data which has been gathered and entered by groups involved in monitoring water quality throughout the watershed. You can search for data by parameter, location, water body, jurisdiction, or specific research document.

Ongoing water quality monitoring is vital to measuring the health of the bay and developing trends. The Watershed Center coordinates a variety of different monitoring projects including stream and beach E.Coli testing, water clarity monitoring in Grand Traverse Bay, and various volunteer monitoring projects.

Stream Search is an ongoing citizen based volunteer monitoring program that samples macroinvertebrates and documents present stream conditions in the spring and fall of each year. Volunteers are led by a trained volunteer team leader.

The Watershed Center has a strong commitment to increasing the public's understanding of our water resources and how to protect them now and into the future.

Want to find out more about current projects The Watershed Center is conducting?

Visit the pages below to see what we're currently working on!

Find out about past projects The Watershed Center has completed.