<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14pt"><div class="yiv372429695MsoNormal">Thursday (9-6-12) – The Labor Day
holiday weekend brought a large number of people to the Brown Bridge
Quiet Area to view first-hand the removal of Brown Bridge Dam and the
restoration of the original river channel through the east end delta
area. For the most part everyone viewed the progress from the
designated viewing areas but a few people wandered into the construction
area for a closer look. When encountered these folks were politely
asked to please stay on designated trails and viewing areas. No major
issues were reported. AMEC and Molon commenced again early Tuesday
morning. They continued to install the temporary dewatering structure
using a larger driver. This worked to a degree but Molon is planning to
bring in an even larger driver later this week. Most of the sheet
piling is with a few feet of their target depth. Late last week
Beirlien completed phase-I demolition of the power house with the
removal of the south bay turbine. The head-gate is used to control the
pond level which is holding steady at 789.0. As you can see from the
attached picture of the south bay turbine wicket gates zebra mussel had
pretty much encrusted the gates. The north bay turbine wicket gates are
in the same condition. Molon welded a rod to an arm that operates the
gates yesterday and used an excavator to move the lever and open the
wickets gates to pass water through the north bay. It worked and they
used the same process to close the gates again.</div><div class="yiv372429695MsoNormal"> </div><div class="yiv372429695MsoNormal">As
last reported, Molon brought in a much larger excavator and as of
yesterday they had dredged close to 45,000 cubic yards. Everything is
going well and have actually opened part of the new river channel to
flow. There’s some question about how to handle some really fine
sediment under the East Overlook. Project engineers and managers from
AMEC, Inter-Fluve, and Molon are currently determining the best course
of action to dredge the new river channel in this location. Overall
everything is proceeding very well. Please let me know if you have any
questions. S.</div><div class="yiv372429695MsoNormal"> </div><div class="yiv372429695MsoNormal"> </div><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman", "serif";">Steve Largent<br>Boardman River Program Coordinator<br>Grand Traverse Conservation District<br>231.941.0960 Ext - 16<br>231.883.9960</span></div></body></html>