Williamston Park

Williamston Whitewater Park
Williamston, MI - website - contact: noonan@voyager.net
Red Cedar River

• Population: 3,000
• Cost: $767,000

The site and it is now completed. The course is one block north of Grand River right in downtown Williamston. There is good parking and a city park with restrooms. It looks like about a 6 foot drop over the length of the course. Looks short but fun. The town is quite nice. We ate lunch at the new Whitewater Deli, reasonable and good, plus there are many other restaurants and lots of Antique stores within walking distance.

Utilizing a DNR Natural Resources Trust Fund grant of $342,700 and $425,000 realized from the sale of bonds by the Williamston Downtown Development Authority, the City of Williamston hopes to complete construction by 1998 of a whitewater canoe and kayak course on the Red Cedar River in Williamston, a city of 3,000 located on I-96 about 20 miles east of Lansing.

The whitewater rapids will replace a dam which was built in 1840 and destroyed in a 1975 flood.

This project is unique because the Red Cedar River water volumes are relatively small, so the facility will be aimed primarily at novice canoeists and kayakers.

Since Williamston's old mill dam was breached, the City of Williamston has been striving to restore its mill pond. Earlier efforts by Williamston to reconstruct a dam at the site were rejected by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources due to environmental considerations. Councilmember Ed Noonan undertook to develop an alternative that would restore the impoundment and accommodate migrating fish, while at the same time creating a recreational resource.

Under the plans developed by Gove Associates, a Lansing engineering firm, the Red Cedar River Rapids Project entails constricting the flow of river water through the use of large boulders, thus creating a series of drops (cascades) over a 100 yard river segment for canoeing and kayaking. There will be a boardwalk and viewing areas along the course, and a artificial island.

Though the whitewater facility will cost less than a dam and fish ladder, it will serve the same purpose by raising the water level several feet, thereby restoring an impoundment extending more than a mile upstream. The impoundment itself is expected to be utilized for recreational activities: flatwater canoeing, boating, fishing and bird-watching. Use of the entire facility will be free of charge.

The Red Cedar River through mid-Michigan was utilized by Indians and early trappers as part of a canoe route between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan.

For further information, contact:

Councilmember Ed Noonan
City of Williamston
161 East Grand River Avenue
Williamston Michigan 48895
(517) 655-2774
E-mail: noonan@voyager.net