USS Edson Gets Much Needed Funding to Help With Rising Water Levels

The state budget for 2021 has some relief for a Bay City historical monument.

In March 2020, State Representative Brian Elder helped secure $200,000 in funding to create a sea wall on the Saginaw River near the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum and the USS Edson to help combat flooding from rising water levels. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the funding was line-item vetoed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer as much of the budget went to combating the coronavirus.

Now, Representative Elder has again helped secure that funding amount for the sea wall in the next Fiscal Year budget, which has been signed by the governor.  Staff at the museum made a homemade earthen berm this spring at a cost of $7,500 to help protect the museum grounds throughout the summer.

The Edson was launched in 1958, seeing action in Vietnam and serving during the Cold War. Many years after the ship was decommissioned, it was approved to rest in its new home on the Saginaw River as a museum in 2012.