Ox Creek: Flowing toward economic revival and environmental justice

On the brink of a summit dedicated to the communitywide revival of Ox Creek in Southwest Michigan’s Berrien County, work and investments keep rolling. Efforts have come far since the 1980s, when now-Benton Harbor Interim City Manager Alex Little recalls the city buying the railway along the creek with a vision for a future nonmotorized trail.  

Creekside trails and pedestrian bridges are in planned for Ox Creek. Artist rendering courtesy of PLY+ Architecture.

 

More than $7.2 million in grant funding has been secured since 2022 to advance the city’s vision for a vibrant, healthy Ox Creek corridor with biking/walking trails and bridges, commercial development, housing opportunities, and more. 

A daylong community summit titled “Changing the Narrative – Restoring and Revitalizing Ox Creek” is scheduled Wednesday, July 31, at Lake Michigan College’s Mendel Center in Benton Harbor. Attendance is free and open to all, with breakfast and lunch provided. Register or learn more.

Ox Creek, which flows into the Paw Paw and St. Joseph rivers before emptying into Lake Michigan, is one of the most urbanized portions of the St. Joseph River Watershed that drains 15 Michigan and Indiana counties. The creek links residents in the city and neighboring Benton Charter Township with history, social connections, and the natural environment. 

But it’s suffered from excessive dumping of trash, urban and rural nonpoint source pollution, and other contamination and neglect. The Paw Paw River Watershed Management Plan approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified Ox Creek as the highest-priority sub-watershed for restoration. 

In 2021, the Benton Harbor City Commission declared the creek’s revival a priority by unanimous resolution. City leaders and local, county, regional, academic, state, and federal partners – including the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s (EGLE) Office of the Great Lakes, the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission (SWMPC), and the University of Michigan – teamed up to form the Ox Creek Collaborative Partnership to support efforts to revitalize and restore the creek in the city and township.  

The city and SWMPC received an EPA Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grant of about $1.05 million for two projects to manage stormwater runoff affecting Ox Creek water quality: a new parking area to improve access to Hall Park and Ox Creek, surrounded by vegetated retention areas to catch and filter stormwater, and rain gardens for stormwater retention in Benton Charter Township to reduce runoff and improve Ox Creek water quality. 

EGLE’s Remediation and Redevelopment Division (RRD) is funding environmental assessments at Benton Harbor sites, including in the surface soils along the likely alignment of the trail near Ox Creek and for a housing development along Pipestone Road within walking distance of Ox Creek. The RRD continues to provide technical assistance through a statewide EPA brownfield grant that includes environmental justice communities.  

The RRD sampled for contaminants at the site of the former Harbor Plating as part of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act Site Reassessment process, or Superfund. This site is also a Michigan per- and polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Action Response Team site.   

The city has applied for a $1 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Removal Program to clean up major illegal dumping and stop further dumping through community coalition building. 

The SWMPC received a $1 million NOAA grant on behalf of the city to develop a creek habitat restoration plan, implement a pilot stream restoration project, and create a city Ox Creek project coordinator position, filled in June 2024, to support coalition building.

Waterfront Restoration and Revitalization Project Manager and Community Engagement/Outreach Specialist Dane Rasmussen

Cornerstone Alliance, on behalf of the city, received a $150,000 Google Home State grant to augment the NOAA-funded pilot stream habitat restoration. 

The City of Benton Harbor also received $600,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Sustain our Great Lakes program to restore 3,400 feet of stream and about 29 acres of floodplain and wetland.    

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is providing technical assistance, including collecting data to develop a hydraulic model and simulate different flood levels to inform the city’s ongoing work on the NOAA habitat restoration plan and areas for future development opportunities. 

The city received a $958,000 Michigan Department of Natural Resources Spark Program grant to offer new recreational opportunities and renovate facilities at Hall Park. The grant also will restore and create new pathways. 

The Berrien County Conservation District received a $27,400 Cooperative Weed Management Area grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service as part of the GLRI for invasive species control in Hall Park. 

The Berrien Community Foundation awarded the SWMPC $3,000 to develop and install an interpretive sign that communicates the vision for revitalizing Ox Creek and Hall Park.   

The city received a Fiscal Year 2023 federal budget allocation of $3 million, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to fund many planning and design efforts in the city, including for a creekside walking and biking trail connecting downtown to the retail zone at I-94. 

What’s next? 

The city, EGLE, and the SWMPC are getting grant-funded work underway for the habitat restoration plan and various individual projects while the Ox Creek partnership continues seeking out additional funding opportunities. The Ox Creek collaborative partnership has developed a draft restoration and revitalization strategic plan and continues to discuss strategies for long-term funding, governance, and stewardship of the corridor.  

Adapted and updated from an article in the 2023 Michigan State of the Great Lakes Report by Emily Finnell, Great Lakes senior advisor and strategist in EGLE’s Office of the Great Lakes.