It's time to Step it Up!
This free, 8-week program is designed to help you get active and visit new parks.
All levels of fitness welcome! The challenge begins on April 9.
Participants can look forward to:
- Achieving fitness goals
- Guided group walks with varying paces
- every week of the challenge
- Discovering new parks & meeting new people
- New incentive prizes
- Motivation & accountability
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New this year! Opportunities to paddle, bike, and run as a group, plus a nature navigation challenge! These activities will only be offered to Step it Up! participants and are free-of-charge.
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Friends of Ottawa County Parks
All aboard!
Grand Lady excursions are scheduled for Tuesday, May 15! The first trip is at: 1:30 pm and the second begins at 4:00 pm.
Enjoy this special spring outing and support the Friends of Ottawa County Parks at the same time! Sign up early to secure your seat. Reservation forms are available online.
Print, complete, and return the form, along with payment. Cost is still only $10 per person.
Excursions will be held rain or shine (sorry, no refunds). If you are unable to attend, you may transfer your reservation to a friend. Notify us of any changes. Funds raised from these trips support Friends’ projects.
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Ottawa County Parks Foundation
Board member and local historian Marjorie Viveen will be presenting stories from the Grand River Greenway throughout 2018.
Immerse yourself in local history by joining us for this free series at the Nature Education Center at Hemlock Crossing County Park at 10 am on April 21.
The Ottawa County Parks Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization, so donations qualify as tax-deductible.
>> Learn more about the Parks Foundation.
>>> Sign up for Parks Foundation emails.
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Join us for...
- Progress updates and local success stories
- What you can do and how to be a Hemlock Hero
- What’s next locally and state wide
Light refreshments and snacks will be provided. Public welcome, bring a friend!
More HWA Task Force updates are below.
Ottawa Sand Acquisition
In an unexpected development, a significant piece of dune property has become available in the cities of Ferrysburg and Grand Haven. Ottawa County Parks is hoping to purchase the 353-acre parcel over the next two years with the help of the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund (MNRTF) grant program.
The site is bordered by publicly owned land, including North Ottawa Dunes and open space dune property owned by the City of Grand Haven. The addition of this property would complete a 2,400-acre coastal corridor of Lake Michigan dunes that also includes P.J. Hoffmaster State Park and the Kitchel-Lindquist-Hartger Dune Preserve.
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Although the site has been an area of interest to Parks, it was not expected to be available for years to come. This changed last fall when the property owner offered to sell the property based on an appraised value of $11.2 million and donate 25% of the land value to serve as match in a grant proposal to the MNRTF.
Parks made the unprecedented step of submitting an $8.4 million grant application to MNRTF outside of the typical grant cycle. In December 2017, the Trust Fund Board recommended that a $4.2 million grant be awarded with an informal commitment to recommend the remaining amount in 2018 (depending on funding availability). The current grant recommendation must also be approved by the State Legislature and Governor.
While it’s not a done deal, we are incredibly excited for the opportunity.
More about the property:
- 219 acres of state designated critical dunes
- 5,585’ of Grand River frontage
- 80-acre, man-made inland lake
- 2,400-acre Lake Michigan coastal corridor
- Potential for an inter-park trail along the Lake Michigan coast
Pump house at Historic Ottawa Beach
The Parks Commission recently approved a short-term lease to the Historic Ottawa Beach Society (HOBS) for the pump house building. The organization plans to operate a museum focused on local area history.
This year, The Pump House Museum will host a new interpretive exhibit, Big Red: From Aid to Navigation to Cultural Icon. The exhibit will focus on Big Red, the lights, the fog signals, and its lighthouse keepers.
The exhibit will highlight all Lake Michigan lighthouses and how museum visitors can help preserve them. Also featured will be a recent donation to the Museum, the only surviving original guest register from the Hotel Ottawa.
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The view of Big Red from Mt. Pisgah, photo by Mike Lozon
HOBS is working with Park Township students who are researching the history of Big Red. This research will be presented in a multi-media presentation to the general public this spring. Date is TBA. Learn more: www.historicottawabeachsociety.org
Construction of the addition to the pump house building, which includes a restroom, will soon be complete!
Idema Explorers Trail
We are pleased to announce a landmark $2 million gift from the Bill and Bea Idema Foundation for the Grand River Greenway Campaign! To recognize this incredible gift, the trail connecting Grand Rapids to Grand Haven will be named in honor of Bill and Bea Idema.
Two major gifts totaling $860,000 from the Wege and Frey Foundations, $50,000 granted by the Consumers Energy Foundation, and $10,000 granted by the Hudsonville-Jenison Community Foundation further boosted our fundraising efforts for the greenway. In total, the Grand River Greenway campaign has raised $5.5 million of the $7.2 million needed to complete this major project in the next four to five years. See page three to learn more about the planned construction this year.
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2018 Trail Construction
Stearns Creek Acquisition
Funding for a future park property with over 6,000 feet of frontage on Stearns Bayou and Stearns Creek was approved by the MNRTF. This 117-acre property features floodplain and wetland areas with rare stands of wild rice, a state-threatened species. It also includes small traces of old growth forest and abandoned farmland which has potential for restoration as oak savannah habitat. If successfully acquired, the plan is to create a park at the site, with natural surface trails, overlooks, and fishing and kayak access on Stearns Bayou.
A portion of this property will be funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP) awarded in 2017, as well as with funds from a private donor. Acquisition is expected this summer or fall.
Eastmanville Barn Repairs
Additional restoration work will begin this spring on the Eastmanville Farm barn. Barn Cats, the company that completed restoration work on the Grand Ravines barn in 2016, will be improving framing, siding, and support posts, as well as fixing leaks in the cupola vents.
Playground coming soon!
This spring a new playground will be constructed at Paw Paw Park in Holland!
Property purchase
A small parcel of land will be purchased this spring in partnership with the Outdoor Discovery Center. This parcel is a critical link in the future greenway trail on the Macatawa River.
In 2017, Ottawa County Parks completed its first Sustainability Plan.
The plan is divided into three equally important parts:
- Environmental Sustainability - Protecting our natural land
- Social Sustainability - Keeping our community engaged & healthy
- Economic Sustainability - Ensuring that funds exist for the future
Throughout the year, we will highlight some of the ways we have committed to sustainability as a Parks Department. Some are more traditional and others may surprise you. View the full five-year plan online.
  
There has been a lot of progress in funding to fight Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. In addition to the $600,000 in GLRI funds we reported last quarter:
The Nature Conservancy was awarded $363,000. In partnership with the Michigan Dune Alliance, they will conduct an HWA detection survey outside of the four known infested counties to determine the presence of additional outbreaks. The span will cover an additional ten counties.
The Ottawa Conservation District was awarded $200,000 for survey work and $299,400 for treatment in the four infested counties. In partnership with the West Michigan Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area, they will be mapping the distribution of HWA within the four infested counties and will deploy treatments to stabilize hemlock trees.
Task force objectives:
- Preventing new introductions of HWA through outreach and education.
- Monitoring for HWA and the expansion of existing HWA populations.
- Responding to and conducting eradication efforts for new findings and range expansions.
- Strategically managing and controlling HWA within West Michigan.
Stay up-to-date on the work of the HWA Task Force
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Citizen scientists make a difference... help us find HWA!
Out for a walk in the park? Take a look at the hemlock trees; if you notice anything unusual, drop a pin on your phone and share the GPS location with us. Another option is to mark the tree branch with a ribbon.
You can identify HWA by looking for a white woolly substance found on the base of the needles, most often on the underside of the branches.
HWA is mobile in the spring! Here are some tips to stop the spread:
- Remove bird feeders between the months of April and July, especially if your feeders are near hemlock trees. During these months, the adelgids can be easily picked up and spread by migrating birds.
- Give your hiking clothes and the bottom of your boots a good scrub before and after hitting the trails.
- Trim branches that hang where they might touch vehicles: driveways, near propane tanks, landscaped areas, etc.
- If you trim INFECTED branches, leave them under the tree. The adelgids will die when removed from the source. Do not throw them in the trash (a branch hanging from a garbage truck can quickly infect a neighborhood).
- ID it and report it: saveMIhemlocks.org.
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New!
Homeschool Programs
Does your family homeschool? Do you desire an educational opportunity that will engage and encourage your kids to explore more in the outdoors? If so, we have program is for you!
We are offering two sessions of "This is our Park" in March. These sessions are a trial run of a newly developed program, Home School Explorers, that will launch this fall. In this program, kids ages 10-13 will be introduced to Hemlock Crossing County Park, while learning how to properly navigate a natural landscape, make observations, and record what they experience with words and art.
Register for a homeschool program online by clicking the date below.
Interested in staying up to date on homeschool programs? Subscribe to our new email list for homeschool families by signing up here.
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Just for teachers...
Are you a teacher/educator in Ottawa County? We have an email list just for you! We offer a number of curriculum-based nature programs and service-based learning opportunities. If you would like to stay up-to-date on the programs we offer, you can sign up here.
Mug Club Membership
Coffee with the Birds might be over for the season, but there are still some mugs available!
Show your support for the Nature Education Center and the Coffee with the Birds program by purchasing your 2018 MUG CLUB mug! The mug features our bird-of-the-year, the golden-crowned kinglet, photographed by Charles DeWitt in Ferrysburg. Membership also includes special bird-related perks through the year.
Membership: $25/person
Learn more & become a member by clicking here.
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