The Friends of the Detroit River (FDR) are working with the Detroit Area of Concern’s (AOC) Detroit Public Advisory Council (DPAC) in collecting surveys from area fishermen to help access the quality of fish caught in the Detroit River.

   Over the last 150 years, rapid population growth, uncontrolled industrial and municipal sewage discharges and storm water run-off have resulted in tremendous degradation to the areas waterways. Implementation of the Clean Water Act in 1972, has helped reduce the sources of many of these problems. Unfortunately, there are still impairments to the river’s eco system that have resulted from these earlier sources of pollution as well as several continuing sources.

   In 1987, the governments of Canada and the US signed a letter of commitment to clean up and restore the Detroit River, authorized under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. From this agreement the Detroit River Area of Concern was formed, one of 43 sites around the Great Lakes suffering from one or more Beneficial Use Impairments (BUI’s).  The Detroit River PAC had identified 14 Beneficial Use Impairments impacting the Detroit River.  The goal of the DPAC is to identify those factors that are contributing to these impairments, develop solutions to eliminate the source of these problems and then to delist the BUI.  For more information on the Detroit AOC, the delisting process and list of current BUI’s go to this web site:  www.epa.gov/greatlakes/aoc/detroit 

   One of the BUI’s that the DPAC is currently working on is the Tainting of fish and wildlife flavor. Earlier discharges of petroleum products and other chemicals to the Detroit River are believed to have impacted the flavor of some of the species of fish caught in the river. Recent studies would indicate that this may no longer be a problem. To access the status of this BUI, FDR is currently collecting surveys from area fishermen. If you catch and eat fish from the Detroit River and would like to participate, please click here to fill out the survey. If you would like to volunteer to do on site survey collection at public fishing sites along the Detroit River, please contact us at river@detroitriver.org  or by phone at 1-734-675-0141.