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Michigan Clean Water Corps (MiCorps)

Volunteers learn how to identify aquatic plants at the annual CLMP training event. Courtesy of MiCorps.
Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy

Michigan Clean Water Corps (MiCorps)

The long-term monitoring of Michigan’s waters is essential for understanding, protecting, and restoring our abundant lakes and streams. To collect this valuable data, the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) engages with residents statewide through the Michigan Clean Water Corps (MiCorps).

MiCorps is a network of volunteer water quality monitoring programs in Michigan. MiCorps provides technical assistance and other support to local units of government, nonprofit entities, and other volunteers around the state in the management of their three core programs.

Programs

MiCorps is comprised of three core programs that actively engage volunteers statewide.

Trash collected during the Newaygo County Conservation District cleanup, with the help of an EGLE grant.

MiCorps Volunteer Stream Cleanup Program

Provides grants to local governments to enable them to host stream cleanups of humans trash (like tires, plastics, and other human caused rubbish.) 

These grants are under specific constraints and can only go to local units of governments, and can not pay for staff labor but can pay for equipment, supplies, and other material needs.

Three volunteers sit on a boat with a clipboard and binder between them

MiCorps’ Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program

Provides sampling methods, training workshops, technical support, quality control, and laboratory assistance for volunteers to monitor their lakes.

The primary purpose of this cooperative program is to help citizen volunteers monitor indicators of water quality in their lake and document changes in lake quality over time.

Three volunteers sitting at a picnic table, sifting through aquatic invertebrates on trash with tweezers

MiCorps Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program

Provides grants, technical assistance, and training to volunteer stream monitoring groups in Michigan to ensure that they are collecting reliable, high-quality data.

This program includes a competitive grants program for macroinvertebrate monitoring and habitat assessment in wadable streams and rivers. 

MiCorps Data Exchange

One of the key components of the MiCorps program is the MiCorps Data Exchange (MDE) platform, which provides online access to volunteer monitoring data through a searchable database. 

This includes lake water quality, aquatic plant and invasive species, lake shoreline habitat, stream macroinvertebrate community, and stream habitat data.

Learn more about the MiCorps Data Exchange
Michigan Clean Water Corps

Resources

Creation

The Michigan Clean Water Corps (MiCorps) was created in 2004  through Michigan Executive Order #2003-15 to assist the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) in collecting and sharing water quality data for use in water resources management and protection programs. 

However, Michigan has maintained a volunteer lake monitoring program since 1974 (originally known as the Self-Help Program, now referred to as the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program or CLMP), making it the second oldest volunteer lake monitoring program in the nation. The CLMP is now a core component of MiCorps (along with the Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program or VSMP).

MiCorps is sponsored by EGLE and is administered in partnership with Michigan State University Extension, the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association, and the Huron River Watershed Council.

Contact Us

Tamara Lipsey, LipseyT@Michigan.gov, 517-342-4372