The Fumee Creek Watershed is approximately 24,500 acres and covers the most urban area in Dickinson County. Nineteen lakes and six streams are located within the nine subwatersheds of the Fumee Creek Watershed. Two of the streams are second quality warm water main streams and four others, including Fumee Creek itself, are rated as second quality trout feeder streams. All six streams are first order tributaries of the top quality warm water Menominee River system.

Fumee Lake Natural Area Ski Trail - Photo by Darlene Strand

The Lake Michigan Lakewide Management Plan (LaMP) has identified the Menominee River Watershed as an Area of Concern (AOC). In turn, the 1992 Menominee River Basin Study classifies the Fumee Creek Watershed as an area of concern. During the Menominee River Basin Study, both Fumee Creek and White Creek were identified as moderately impaired based on a benthic macroinvertebrate analysis completed in 1991 using the GLEAS Procedure #51. Also, five of the six main creeks in the Fumee Creek watershed were listed as being "significantly environmentally contaminated". These sites are listed in accordance with the Michigan Environmental Response Act, Act 307 of 1982, as amended.

Cowboy Lake was listed as having a high potential for contamination from residential land uses as well. Even though this watershed is the most urban and heavily populated area in Dickinson County, the watershed remains 48% forested. Other watershed land use distributions include 24% urban, 5% agriculture, 2% wetland, and 21% in other land use categories.

There are many water resource concerns regarding the human activity in the area. The Fumee Creek Watershed Council and Project Manager have continually collected water resource concern information thorough community events, mailings, newspaper articles, radio interviews, visual inventory, and benthic and water sampling since the start of the current EPA 319 Clean Water Act Grant. Also, in 1997, several meetings were held for the residents of Dickinson County to express their natural resource concerns. Of the 93 different concerns expressed in the county, 60% of those apply to the Fumee Creek Watershed. The compiled concerns of area residents encompass urban issues such as storm water runoff and discharge, fertilizer use, loss of riparian vegetation, toxic chemical disposal, sewage treatment and septic tank condition, construction runoff, lake eutrophication and contamination, and shortage of recreation trails.

Increasing development within the watershed boundary is placing a greater stress on the surface water resource. Since the Menominee River Basin Study there has been a significant increase in commercial and residential development. The accompanying runoff from a greater percentage of impervious surfaces has created more sedimentation, nutrient loading, and unstable storm flows in the surface waters of the Fumee Creek Watershed.

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