Steps away from the cacophony of Wednesday's morning commute on Van Dyke Road in Utica, a celebration was occurring. Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel welcomed visitors, mostly local officials and a spattering of media types like myself, to a press conference. Hackel and his team have spent years goading anyone who would listen about his "Blue Economy" initiative, a plan to capitalize on the economic potential of developing recreation and tourism on the county's water assets.

This time it was about the progress made on the Clinton River — an 83-mile watershed spanning from Springfield Township northwest of Pontiac to Lake St. Clair in Harrrison Township.

Hackel instructed us to board one of the nearly 50 bright orange Sundolphin kayaks at the river's edge at Heritage Park. From there we would float roughly one river mile to the newly renovated Dodge Park in Sterling Heights for lunch, unimpeded.

Freely traveling a single mile along the mud-stained river from Tuesday night's rain may seem innocuous enough, but a decade ago it would have been impossible.

In 2007, Macomb County hired a pair of professional kayakers to assess the river and its potential. They set out on a 9-mile paddle from Yates Cider Mill through downtown Utica and beyond. There were more than 120 blockages in their path, causing the pair to portage their kayaks over land roughly 80 times, Gerard Santoro, program manager for the county's land and water resources department, told me at the river's edge.

Now the Clinton River has 32 paddle-able miles with several kayak or canoe launches, many of which are ADA compliant.

But making the river accessible is only one part of its transformation. In the mid-1970s, the Clinton River was the most polluted river in the the state, ahead of the sludge-filled Rouge River in Detroit.

When your state is more than 41 percent water, you tend to take it for granted. For a millennium, Michigan's inland waterways were nothing more than roving garbage cans, a means to transport waste. Michigan's rivers became synonymous with pollution throughout the boom of the industrial revolution and the rise of American manufacturing. The words polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the scientific name for the pollutants stemming from vehicle emissions, coal combustion, parking lot sealants, soot from industrial smokestacks, meant very little for a very long time. They were simply a byproduct of a rising middle class.

That ignorant, and downright dangerous, line of thought is a thing of the past. We understand the health and economic consequences. Which is why communities across the Great Lakes have spent million and millions of dollars to remediate our waters.

Federal, county and local governments have spent more than $32 million to make the Clinton River what it is today. Something Hackel sees as a local jewel for the region's economy.

"The river is much cleaner and more connected than it's been in decades," Hackel told the crowd ahead of the kayak trip. "I call it our mainstream Main Street. I used to go up north to kayak. I didn't know I could do this in our own backyard."

In the last three years, two kayak and canoe liveries have opened on the river, boasting more than 10,000 rentals.

Hackel said he wants to see more rentals and to make Wednesday's kayak trip an annual adventure, one that connects the county's residents with its natural resource.

To that end, Macomb County is partnering with Fiat Chrysler Automobile's nonprofit arm, the FCA Foundation, to launch a competition. The nonprofit is prepared to award the communities in Macomb County with the best access plans for the river with two to three ADA-compliant kayak and canoe launch points.

"We have to clean up our own backyard," Hackel said. "This really is about quality of life ... and we have a lot more work to do."