Rouge Rundown – June 18, 2025: Green Jobs | the Salty Situation | Ready to Celebrate? & More!

Do you hear that? Your River is calling. Enjoy the water in this season of renewal, your with Friends. Connect with your River. Enjoy the peace of nature. Join these upcoming paddle trip adventures! 

June 21: National Canoe Day

July 19:  Black Pack Paddle Trip

August 2: Summer Magic Paddle Trip presented by the Inkster Task Force

Paddlers have the option to rent a canoe or kayak or bring their own boat. Please note, fees are due in advance for all attendees. 

New to all things gardening? Come out for Kinder-Garden! You’ll go on a weed hunt, discover native flowers, and learn about pollinators! Get some great gardening tips, see proper weeding technique, and learn about the wonderful ecosystems we can create by planting natives! 

When: June 21 from 10 am – 1 pm
Where: Plymouth Arts & Recreation Complex, 650 Church St, Plymouth, MI 48170

All ages and gardening experience are welcome!  It will be a wonderful way to start your weekend!

This workforce development program is designed to provide you with pathways towards living wage employment through the maintenance of important landscaping features that protect the Rouge River, Detroit River, and Lake Erie. 

This 6 week, 12 class course will teach you how to weed native plant gardens, identify native plants vs. weeds, conduct photo monitoring, identify soil types, understand and correct erosion and sediment issues, transplant and thin garden plants, and more! NO prior experience needed! 

Fall Cohort: July 22 – August 28, 2025.

As you work to restore the Rouge River, local college students have found your river to be a fascinating system to study and learn from.  UM Master’s student Olivia Williams just published a paper “A comparison of participatory science seining and electrofishing for sampling fish assemblages in an urban river” in Ecological Solutions and Evidence, which documents the effectiveness of the technique used by Friends of the Rouge for fish surveys in urban wadable streams.

UM Master’s student Lian Anderson just presented her thesis research at the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) Conference “A secondary upstream invasion of Round Goby over 13 years following a dam removal” focused on analyzing FOTR’s fish data.

WSU student Hector Esparra-Escalera just received the IDEA+ Presenter Scholarship for his presentation titled “Road Salt Impacts on Hexagenia spp: Implications for Freshwater Ecosystem Health” at the  same conference. 

Congratulations to all three students!

Thank you volunteers and members for another successful Spring Bug Hunt! On April 12, an amazing 113 community scientists came together to sample forty-two sites for benthic macroinvertebrates (“bugs”). Volunteer-collected data showed the bug communities, which reflect the health of the streams, to be relatively stable. What stood out were the many sites with very high levels of chloride. Twelve sites were at the “toxic” level for chloride as compared to last year with only five. This likely reflects the increased use of road salt during the cold and snowy winter. These finding are an important reminder for all of us to minimize the use of chemicals like road salt to keep our streams healthy.

Your River adventure awaits! Mark your calendar for Tuesday, August 5th for the biennial, one-of-a-kind, riverboat adventure – the Rouge Cruise! 

You are invited to support a cleaner hometown Rouge River as you experience it, first-hand, from the 3 story Diamond Belle Boat. Captain Sally Petrella, Watershed Ecologist and bug whisperer, will share history, fun-facts, and today’s river hot topics as she leads narration of the incredible made-in-Detroit sites along the route. 

Experience your hometown Rouge River. Support its better future. Tickets go on sale June 28th!