Centerville Creek / Hika Park: Village of Cleveland

Friends of Hika Bay

The Centerville Creek Restoration Project was completed as a dam removal and stream restoration of a former millpond that existed in the Village of Cleveland for over 100 years.  The project was facilitated through a partnership among the Village of Cleveland, UW-Madison, UW-Manitowoc, and the Friends of Hika Bay.  The Friends of Hika Bay emerged from the Citizen Advisory Committee formed with a grant from the Fund for Lake Michigan to provide input and guidance to the design phase of the project.  The creek channel was restored to a meandering stream constructed with pools, riffles, and other fish habitat structures.  Banks were reinforced using soil lifts, wood structures, and riparian native tree/shrub plantings. Ongoing bank stabilization actions are in process, including revegetation of the floodplain with native plants. Hika Park absorbed the newly restored Centerville Creek Corridor and the Hika Shores properties to become 13.9 acres from the original 2.2 acres.

Now that the restoration has be complete over almost 10 years, LNRP is evaluating it’s success in improving the water quality of Centerville Creek as a Lake Michigan Tributary. Our team visited the site in the fall of 2025 with members of the original restoration team. The restoration site is holding up fairly well, with some channel widening as a result of back flow from varying Lake Michigan levels. Data collected by students at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay Manitowoc Campus indicates that the restoration is stabilizing phosphorus inputs after rain events. But there is still more upstream work to do, and the LNRP project team is in the process of determining next steps for this site.