$513K for local wetlands restoration

SANDUSKY — The federal government recently provided $513,000 to help an environmental nonprofit's ongoing efforts to restore wetlands in Sandusky Bay. U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, announced the grant for the Inner Sandusky Bay Wetlands Restoration project. The project aims to restore 500 acres of wetlands in Sandusky Bay. The money will pay for the initial steps of that project, explained Alexis McCarter, a natural infrastructure director for the Ohio branch of the grant's nonprofit recipient, The Nature Conservancy. It will cover the cost of getting permits, revising the designs and carrying out community outreach. "Eventually, we hope to restore wetlands that have been lost, but that will be years in the future," McCarter said. An article on The Nature Conservancy's website states that the group has embarked on a big project, the Sandusky Bay Initiative, to restore wetlands in Sandusky Bay. The Inner Sandusky Bay Wetlands Restoration project that just got new funding is only a portion of that much larger project. The Sandusky Bay Initiative aims to restore 1,000 acres of habitat in Sandusky Bay, which covers 40,000 acres. The Nature Conservancy works around the world to carry out its nature conservation work. It is the lead agency for the Sandusky Bay Initiative, but it has plenty of local partners, including the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the DeWine administration's H2Ohio program. The first project in the Sandusky Bay Initiative to be completed, the Pickerel Creek Riparian project, ended last year. It reconnected the creek to its floodplain and restored 50 acres of wetlands. The Pickerel Creek Wildlife Area has a total of 3,200 acres and runs from the south shore of Sandusky Bay to U.S. 6 in Townsend and Riley townships in Sandusky County, according to the wildlife area's website. The state acquired the property in 1987. Another early project in the Sandusky Bay Initiative was to restore four acres of wetlands in the Pickerel Creek Wildlife Area near Raccoon Creek. That project has been completed, too. All of the various projects in the bay are supposed to work together and reinforce each other to improve habitat for wildlife and improve water quality in the bay. Sandusky's government has been carrying out its own Sandusky Bay project, the Cedar Point Causeway Wetlands, a 30-acre project on the west side of the Cedar Point Causeway. Kaptur remarked the effort to restore Sandusky Bay's wetlands has many positive effects. "The Sandusky Bay wetlands are an ecological treasure, but they have suffered due to decades of degradation," Kaptur said. "Restoring these wetlands will have far-reaching benefits, from reducing flood risks to revitalizing habitats that support local biodiversity. This award will help transform Sandusky Bay into a more resilient and vibrant ecosystem, ensuring it remains a valuable, arable resource for our Northwest Ohio region." So far, more than $20 million has been raised from various sources to pay for the Sandusky Bay Initiative. The ongoing effort to restore wetlands along northwest Ohio's Lake Erie coast and in the rivers that feed into the lake are a major part of the H2Ohio program's efforts to reduce the size of the annual harmful algal bloom in western Lake Erie. The wetlands act as a natural filter removing phosphorus and other substances that feed the algal blooms. Sandusky Bay and other local areas were once part of the Great Black Swamp. Settlers drained the swamp to turn it into land for farming.