(upbeat music) - Restoring the rapids on the grand river is a $45 million project that will transform two-and-a-half miles of the waterway, stretching through downtown Grand Rapids.

The idea originating more than a decade ago.

What's taking the project so long to begin?

We discuss the process and how it will transform the environment and regional economy on West Michigan Week.

Thank you for joining us on West Michigan Week.

The grand river restoration project will bring the rapids back to the river.

When logging and furniture making were the hub of Grand Rapids industry, man altered the flow of the river, removing the boulders and the rapids with them.

Times have changed, and there's a movement to restore the rapids, providing significant natural, cultural, and commercial benefits to the region.

Steve Heacock is president, and CEO of Grand Rapids WhiteWater.

You're here with us after speaking at the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum earlier today, out along the lakeshore.

How are you, sir?

- I'm just great, Patrick.

Thank you very much.

How are you?

- I'm fantastic.

This project has always brought this energy, this excitement.

In the open, I said to begin the project; it's been ongoing.

It's just we haven't seen the fruits of the labor yet out along the banks and in inside the river bed there.

What is going on?

I know this is a process.

It might be even frustrating at times for you.

There's financing, (chuckles) regulation.

I get it.

So behind the scenes, what is taking place?

- And I note, frustrating is one word.

(Patrick chuckles) I mean, it's probably 10 times what anybody outside the project feels just because we're living it every day.

The reality is, I think honestly, Patrick, is there was some naivete at the beginning on our part and on what this kind of thing takes.

And there have also been some tough terms.

I mean, COVID didn't help us, and so, it's just sort of a iterative process.

So think about it.

We've got seven regulatory agencies that we need to get approval from, raising $45 million, effectively building a river.

I mean, I know God did it quickly, but I don't think anybody else can, right.

And, and it just takes a lot of time.

So how do you get approval from seven regulators?

Well, you get them in a room over 12 years (giggles) to try to get to the right answer.

You get some of their interests are contradictory.

And just as a quick example, the FEMA people are very interested, of course, in floods.

So any material you put in the river they're are concerned that you're raising the level of the water.

On the other hand, the DNR wants great fish passage.

Well, there's an 18' drop in this river.

So good fish passage means you build a ramp.

You know, you put in material to build up that ramp.

Well, those two on their face are contradictory.

And somehow then we've had to work through a process to make them work together, and then add in, you know, and really I'm just talking about the lower reach for the moment, add in then the need to build and rebuild a viable sea lamprey barrier.

And the need to then incorporate the federal government's interest.

And by the way, I mean, once we help them find funding for that, that's their project, you know, is to do that work.

Well, that complicates things.

So I don't mean to be making excuses.

That's not my point at all, but it's very much an iterative process where every step of the way, we've learned something new, and every step of the way, we found new challenges to overcome.

But bottom line, still think it's gonna happen.

I still think it's gonna happen relatively soon.

And I've become philosophical about the time gap (Patrick giggles) because the truth is this is a project that's gonna impact this community for a hundred years or more.

- Well, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

- Oh, that's all right.

You go ahead.

- I was just gonna say, you love a big complex project, (laughs) and watching it come to fruition.

So yes, it's taking some time, but I know that there's that enjoyment once it all comes together.

It's just not easy.

The buy-in and getting people to understand what we see every day, because this is the river that people know, and I'm pointing over here because our studios are right next to the Fulton Street bridge.

I can see it right behind you in that visual there.

So this is the river we know.

- By the way, that was a drone above Fulton Street, so.

- Yeah, so.

But this is the river we know.

So how do you even sell the idea that there's another river out there that was here at one time, and we can bring that back?

- The interesting part to me is that people have stuck with it, and they've stayed excited even through this process.

And so, the question I get most often isn't, "Ah, it's taken too long, "or you guys must not, "you're not gonna get it done."

The question really is, "When can I get in the river?"

You know, what.

I mean, people are just excited about getting it done and moving forward.

And so, I don't know that we've lost that.

I mean, think.

So we've raised nearly $20 million in private funds for this.

I mean, it's not just private that includes the city's contribution, and the Kent County's contribution, and some state money.

But the truth is, that's a substantial amount of money to do what is basically an infrastructure project for the state.

I mean, there are people all over the country are taking out dams because they're not useful any longer, commercially.

And so, people wanna make things more natural than they were.

Well, we're doing it here in this private-public partnership.

So we're moving ahead, frankly, at great speed on some parts of the project, - You mentioned upper reach, lower reach.

That's some new terminology for our viewers here, but essentially it is geographic along the river, the two-and-a-half miles, but also, it's the chronology of getting things done.

So kind of explain what it is we'll be seeing, and in what areas of the river.

- Okay.

Very happy to.

So, and it is new terminology.

And terminology we've settled on as we go forward.

So we decided quite a while ago at the recommendation of the state to separate the project into two so that we could get part of it permitted and done, while the other part was gonna take longer.

And everybody knew that.

So the separation basically is Bridge Street to Fulton Street and the improvement of that part of the river as the lower reach.

And then, the project on the upper reach includes both the creation of a viable sea lamprey barrier that we hope will be an adjustable hydraulic structure.

And then the WhiteWater amenities and other things that will occur on that part.

And that's basically Bridge Street up to almosty Ann Street.

So, those are the two parts of the project, and most of what we're focused on today, and what we're in the middle of the permitting discussion with EGLE, the state department of energy, great light, I'm sorry.

Environment, great lakes, and energy.

I've got it right, I think.

But what we're in discussion with them is the lower.

So let me tell you about the lower reach.

It is... We're basically taking out four low-head dams.

And around the country of these low-head dams are considered killing machines because they're not made for people to go over.

And so, if you get trapped in this, and it's very easy to do, it turns so that keeps you in it grasp and doesn't spit you out.

So if you're on a kayak.

No matter how good you are at that.

And I assume you're a very strong guy, Patrick.

No matter how good you are, it's almost impossible to get out of that run.

That's why nobody uses the river.

I mean, it is... Brenda and I live on the river right across from Grand Valley and the Foison building, and nobody's...

The only people that use it are some anglers that come from Johnson Park to get to the dam, and that seasonal, and not very many, honestly.

So people are smart.

They don't get in the river 'cause they know it might kill 'em, (laughs) and you know, it's very dangerous, it's harmful.

So we're trying to get rid of those hazards, first of all, and free up the river for personal use.

And, and then we're putting in structures.

So over time, starting really way at the beginning, long before even cameras could record it, people strip the river of rocks and of material.

And it wasn't people, government did that.

There was a state bill early on, you know, late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, allocating money to go take rock out of the river.

And the reason they wanted to do that is they wanted Grand Rapids to be a better port, and it could not be a better port because of the material in the river.

But the reason it never became a good port (Steve chuckles) is because there's also an 18' drop in the river naturally.

Which, of course, leads to this project.

We're really not creating something new.

We're unveiling something that's been buried water for many, many years.

- When do you expect the dams to be removed?

- Right.

So we're in the middle of this permitting process.

We filed the application with the state at the end of last year; they sent us a first set of questions and a second set of questions.

We're working through that with them right now.

If we can resolve the differences that we have and how we see the project, we could be permitted by late this year, early next.

And if that's the case, we could be in the river next year.

The first step in the construction is the mussel work.

As you know, there's an endangered species in the river, the snuffbox mussel.

And we have reached agreement with the federal government on how to manage that.

So we'll pick up as many mussels as we can, and move them during the project, and then bring them back afterwards.

And in the meantime, improve the mussel habitat considerably and also mitigate any loss of animals in a mitigation fund.

That's the first step.

Well, the next step, then, will be coffering the river.

So cutting it in half and drying out as much as you can, half of it.

And then those dam start being taken out, and this structure then gets built.

All of that, I mean, the lower reach, once we get started, is only a two to three-season project.

So it's conceivable that you and I could be in a raft or a kayak floating down that river through those rapids in the next three years.

- And this project also improves the water quality and helps with the natural species.

I mean, I know that there's gonna be almost a restoration of species that really have not been in this part of the river for quite some time.

- That's exactly right.

And by the way, that's one of the reasons this project is taking so long.

When it began, it was mostly about creating a recreational WhiteWater.

And it was a couple of guys, Chip Richards and Chris Muller really originated the idea.

And they're the kind of guys that love to do anything that might hurt you.

They love to ride bikes through the woods real fast, and they love to ski down a hill, and they're exceptional athletes in that way.

They were used to going elsewhere to kayak and to do the kind of things you can do in some high water; the rolling, or the surfing against the surface, or even just the thrill of going through the rapids.

And so, at the beginning, it was sort of about that.

Well, the truth is that's not environmentally friendly, necessarily.

I mean, in rivers where they've done that, it's often there's concrete used instead of natural boulders.

It might actually hurt fish passage and other things.

And so, in the West Michigan way, in the Grand Rapids way, people got together, Mark Van Putten from the Wege Foundation, folks from the state got together and said we can do better than that, we can make this something fabulous.

And so, in fact, the focus became not just what WhiteWater, but equally, WhiteWater and the environment, the ecological health of the river.

And so, indeed this project as it's designed helps fish passage.

And the point you're getting to is, I mean, this could become a phenomenal walleye fishery, bass, you know, the catfish, the non-jumping species that currently are blocked by those dams for part of the spawning season.

It opens up about a hundred acres of spawning area for those species for both reaches and allows them a way to get through.

So even sturgeon, which is a very exciting, sexy part of this, we don't talk about a lot because it's one of many, many things.

But the truth is, you know, the native people settled here, in part, because they could take sturgeon out of the river.

It is conceivable.

Perfectly conceivable that in 30 years, you'd have a sturgeon fishery here again because of this exposure of the spawning area and because of the removal of those dams.

So yeah, we're very excited.

And then you add the fact that you get back to a rapids sort of environment where there's mist in the air, and there's oxygen being put into the water as that whitewater is created.

It gets back to the nature of the thing that hasn't been there, as I said, for 130 years or something.

I mean, it's phenomenal.

- So how do you tie this all in with development along the river?

I know you've done the economic studies and everything else.

There'll be paths, bike trails, walking trails along the shoreline there.

And also, you'll have some places for landing kayaks, and canoes, and everything else.

So there's a bigger picture here when it comes to tourism, everyday enjoyment.

What is that vision?

- So, we're, I don't wanna speak beyond, so Grand Rapids WhiteWater is about the wet, is about getting this piece done, but of course, I'm personally involved, we're involved also with some of the stuff that Andy guy is doing at the DGRI, and others aren't involved in.

And it's incredibly exciting.

And again, very Grand Rapids-like.

It's we built the arena, for example, in a private-public partnership, but look at all the businesses that have popped up around there, look at the those sort of rings of development that have occurred because of those people are downtown using that amenity.

Well, this is like that, except it's two miles long.

And so, you put people in the river and make it interesting for that two miles.

And we expect that, in fact, there'll be development throughout.

Well.

the City of Grand Rapids has done phenomenal work, both within the parks department and outside of it, planning on looking at opportunity areas, and they've identified 28 different opportunity areas where parks and other development can occur.

And it's a very, very exciting thing.

Now that the good and bad news is it, many of them are dependent upon the in-water work, being don't because you don't have those people there, and you don't have the interest in the river.

Some of them are not dependent on that.

I mean, the museum can go ahead with its plans, which are very exciting, with or without the project, obviously, it's better off with the project.

So really, we've had experts look at this and tell us that, yeah, it's gonna bring $20 million a year directly to the city, and it's employees, the people, that find work because of this project.

They're talking about 250,000 to 500,000 people coming for the amenity.

Not in the river, 10% of those people get in the river, but the rest of people come because of the excitement, because of what it looks like.

And because it's part of a great weekend where they come and enjoy a concert, and enjoy some great food and a great place to stay and see friends.

So there are plans.

And as I said, the way city is, the way West Michigan is, you know.

I'm not privy to probably, you know, I'm privy to probably just 10% of the plans because there are some...

There's a couple of guys sitting in founders right now, talking about how they're gonna create something cool tied in this river project.

- So, is there a city out there, is there a template where this has been done before?

Where your team has gone to visit to see this in action?

- It's not the kind of thing where you can get on an airplane and just go and say, see this the way it'll be, because it is unique.

And in part, it's unique because of our natural amenity.

Because we have this 18' drop here naturally.

And for context, when the U.S. Kayak and Canoe Association built a center in Charlotte, North Carolina, for training for the Olympics, they built a 20' drop.

So 18' is pretty darn significant.

And the one place we've gone, Richard Bishop held the job of CEO of Grand Rapids WhiteWater before he went back to Georgia, and we've gone down to see the project there.

And it's very exciting.

It's a downtown project.

It's similar in many ways.

It's dissimilar in that it's entrapped water.

There's a dam that they release.

So you and I would know that we have to kayak at 4:00 pm 'cause that's the only time the water's gonna be released.

So it's not natural in the same way.

They also didn't have the issue of rock.

The rock had stayed in the river and not been stripped.

But in the sense of it being downtown, and spring developments, and giving people an opportunity to do a kayak run, and get out, walk down the street and have dinner in the great restaurant, it's similar in that way.

And there, that's kind of, I don't think I'm insulting them.

It's kind of a sleepy southern town, and in the summer when it's very, very hot, you know, they don't get a lot of visitors.

They've drawn 150,000 people a year because of the project.

- So how family-friendly will this be?

Will there be different passages that, depending on your level of expertise, that you travel down the river?

- That's just a great question.

I appreciate you asking it.

Very much so.

So unlike some of these amenities that have been built in other parts of the country and world.

I mean, Canada is very big on these things too.

Many of them cover the whole width of the river.

But our rivers very, very wide.

So if you have 400 feet of river to work with, these amenities might cover a fourth of it.

So 3/4 of it will be very passable.

We'll be it'll be a run of river.

I mean, the river will be moving, but you can get up and down it; you can make that work.

So if you never wanted to go through a rapid and still do kayak run, you could.

You could very easily do that.

The other thing though is that even the waves themselves are tremendously safe.

So if we are...

If the state allows us to build what's been designed, and negotiated with the state, it's very safe.

So the beauty of an engineered wave is that you go through the wave, and if you're in trouble or anything, there's a quiet pool beyond it that's been designed into the design.

And just beyond it is a way to get out of the river on the shore.

If you didn't do that, if you just threw rocks in the river, the turbulent water would likely be under the bridges or somewhere else.

And it could be dangerous.

You could end up in deep water.

I mean, so it's very family-friendly.

And we saw when we were out in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Where Jason Currie, who is the hydraulic engineer who designed this.

When you go look at his design, there, it a river very much like the Grand River.

It's now this turbulent beautiful wave that people have a ball with.

In fact, while we were there, believe it or not, there were people in from Hawaii on this thing.

And they'd go there for training because it's a steady wave.

They don't have to wait for the wave to come in, you know, or paddle out.

They're just working on the wave itself.

But we were sitting there, and there's kids diving in with nothing but an inner tube.

There's people with dive in with nothing but a ski jacket on.

There's somebody... Eric Delong from the City of Grand Rapids has always been worried about, what if some kid buys a rubber ducky from Walmart and jumps in.

And Glen's smar, Glen's admires, I should say.

But what if they do that.

And in fact, we saw that.

Some guy with this rubber ducky with two kids on it jump in, and the wave just pushes them through, and they go on their way, get back out on the shore and come back around.

So, yeah, there's very family-friendly, and it'll be an exceptional place for kids.

And the YMCA and the museum are working together on programming for kids about water safety, about how to use the water, about how to swim.

I mean, all those things will be there for the people of the neighborhoods, and others who... unfortunately many don't get to Lake Michigan, don't get to swim in the lake up north.

So this will be a big ad in that regard.

- And now, here we are, Grant Action 2.0.

I believe it was last year.

Maybe it was earlier this year.

I've lost track of time during this pandemic, the Grant Action 2.0 project, with the amphitheatre downtown, the 201 Markets Street project, and this big development that is also going to take shape, which also introduces itself or lends itself to the river.

What timing, how much was going on behind the scenes?

Were you a part of that, or was this just something that came about naturally?

- I think it came by quite naturally because there are a lot of people interested in continuing to see the city thrive.

And have the intent to create a community where knowledge workers and other people will wanna move here.

So that, in fact, we can keep our momentum going.

Years ago, when I was chair of the Kent County Commission, I did introduce, we did introduce sort of, actually it might've been shortly after that, anyway, I was chair of the CAA, and we introduced the idea of an amphitheater, maybe out at Millennium Park, and the county was incredibly cooperative on working on that project.

And we thought about it and went through it and just couldn't find funding for it.

Couldn't get traction for the project.

And so, to have it re-introduced on the riverfront, downtown is just to me, an to exceptional idea.

One that again helps move things forward.

And the Amway Corporation, and the Amway family's working with the city, to me it put forward a really fun, great idea that again, will help our community attract people, and keep being as viable and strong as it is.

So I...

It's like I'm saying, I think a lot of people are talking about a lot of ideas and getting through it.

But I'm delighted Grant Action 2.0 was there.

And, you know, you look at Carol Van Andel, and Tom, and Dick, and the work they're gonna do together.

I mean, it's very exciting.

And I think they've embraced the amphitheater fully.

- I only asked because I saw in the mock-ups, there was a kayak marina down by the amphitheater, so I had you in mind when I saw that.

We've got about a minute here, Steve.

When do you think we will all be able to partake in the WhiteWaters?

2025?

I mean, I know we've been at this for a while, but what's your best guess?

- So I am optimistic.

Optimistically believed that by 2024, we'll be in the lower reach and using that fully.

And that's the reach right in the core of downtown.

People will be getting used to that.

I'm actually hoping that people put some kayaks in before that beneath the low-head dams.

But the full project, then, is gonna take another three or four years beyond that because of the building of the new dam and then the other amenities.

But again, in the context of how long this is gonna last and positively impact the community.

I'm excited for it.

I certainly hope (giggles) I'm around to enjoy it.

I think I still have years left in a kayak, so we'll see.

- Oh, well, I hope to see you out there someday and enjoying a slow ride down the river.

But, Steve, hang in there.

It's been a long project, and we're all looking forward to seeing some boulders in the water.

Steve Heacock, president, and CEO of Grand Rapids WhiteWater.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

Great to see you.

- Great seeing you.

And it's always good to see you too.

We'll see you.

(upbeat music)