Officials still focused on cleaning up Sandusky Bay

SANDUSKY — The ongoing effort to strengthen northern Ohio's greatest resource moves forward in Sandusky.As part of the Sandusky Bay Initiative, most recently, preliminary tasks for a coastal wetland project along the Cedar Point Causeway started."The city has been working with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and several other stakeholders on in-water projects," city public works director Aaron Klein said.They're "designed to reduce sediment and nutrient loadings that cause harmful algal blooms, improve aquatic habitats and provide coastal wetlands as a buffer between the hardscapes typically seen along the Lake Erie shoreline," Klein said.Right now, however, city officials don't have a dedicated income source to actually develop these plans today."We are hoping to get funding to implement and maintain the wetlands," Klein said. "Those agencies are also considering funding a similar project also part of the Sandusky Bay Initiative that is more closely focused on habitat restoration and sediment reduction on the east side of Landing Park. If implemented, we would be looking to integrate design with and coordinate construction after Landing Park."Landing Park is the proposed nature center and recreation area behind Sports Force Parks at Cedar Point Sports Center off Cleveland Road (U.S. 6).What's the Sandusky Bay Initiative?A multiphase, long-term plan to clean up Sandusky Bay and, in turn, Lake Erie involves several components. They include:• Filtering out nutrients from water flowing into the bay, reducing the size and frequency of harmful algal blooms• Creating better and safer habitats for fish and birds; Fishing and bird watching represent two important tourist activities along the Lake Erie shore.• Providing a positive use for dirt taken from the lake bottom during dredging operations; Today dirt is simply dumped from shipping channels to somewhere else in the lake, a practice the Ohio EPA wants to end by 2020.Workers targeted three areas to study: the west end near Cold Creek; a manmade shore, called Kafralu Island, near Cedar Point; and East Sandusky Bay by the recently announced Landing Park.The project's first phase calls for two city-hired firms to analyze, investigate, engineer and design this plan in hopes of improving Sandusky Bay's overall health. Later phases, which would ideally achieve the aforementioned goals, might take several years to implement.About two years ago, Sandusky's government secured $1 million in state funds to cover all work involved in this first phase. As of today, it's not known how much future phases could cost or where Sandusky would receive the additional money from.The state chose Sandusky to lead this pioneering pilot project."Sandusky Bay is one of the areas within greater Lake Erie that gets algae on a regular basis," Klein said. "It's a smaller body that has basically one outlet into Lake Erie, and a pilot project like this, if successful, can be ramped up for a larger project in the future."Reach reporter Andy Ouriel at ouriel@sanduskyregister.com and follow him on Twitter @AndyOuriel.Participants race their Interlake sailboat toward the mark on Sandusky Bay during the Sandusky Sailing Club's Wednesday Night Races on Sept. 4, 2019. Known as the Sandusky Bay Initiative, an ongoing plan led by city government officials aims to clean up this natural resource.