Traver Creek

Traver Creek, a tributary of the Huron River, flows through the City of Ann Arbor’s Leslie Park Golf Course. Working for the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner, Spicer Group designed a full corridor restoration to reduce flooding and improve water quality while augmenting play, aesthetics, and native habitat. Among the changes implemented, a new two-stage channel reconnected the

floodplain to the base-flow channel allowing flow to spread out during large storms. This flow control, along with energy dissipation measures, greatly reduced bank erosion and sedimentation downstream. In the floodplain shelf along the creek bed, wetlands were created with native plantings.

New retaining walls made from precast concrete were installed along the creek, ponds and golf cart paths. Two-foot bridges were relocated and expanded with new piers and lifted out of the influence of high-water flows. Existing ponds on the course were retrofitted to increase rainwater detention.

Water levels were lowered while working on these ponds consistent with state permits. Numerous turtles were relocated to another pond on the golf course. Some of the turtles were estimated to be more than 75 years old and weighed at least 30 pounds. Construction was completed within seven months and created over six acres of native buffers and wetlands that will help remove pollutants, reduce sedimentation, and mitigate peak flows during storm events.