Cleaning up the Kalamazoo River, protecting the Great Lakes
Last week, I joined Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin for a tour of the cleanup underway near the Trowbridge Dam in Allegan County to see how that work is progressing and discuss what it means for Southwest Michigan.
This project is a critical element in the restoration of the Kalamazoo River, which has experienced generations of legacy pollution. Before the dam can come down and the river can once again flow freely, crews must remove the contaminated sediment trapped upstream so that restoring its natural flow doesn’t spread pollution farther downstream.
In 2025, crews removed more than 300,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment upstream of the dam. That material was processed to separate sediment from water, with more than 650 million gallons treated and tested before being returned to the river. The sediment contains chemicals known as PCBs, which don’t readily break down and can accumulate in fish.