Project Profiles - United States

The Detroit River: Building Conservation Bridges
by Gary Muehlenhardt, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and John Merriman, Environment Canada Photos by Gary Kramer

Detroit—what do you think of when you hear that name? Auto industry? Steel? The sounds of Motown? Makes sense. But, for a growing number of people “Detroit” calls to mind the river that flows past the city's front door and forms the boundary between the United States and Canada. Unfortunately, this river has been unmercifully abused by humans, but nevertheless, it retains tremendous potential to benefit wildlife, fish, and people.

The Detroit River has paid a tremendous price for what humans call “progress.” Indeed, most of what was natural in and around the Detroit River is now gone. When Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac established Detroit in 1701, the river had extensive marshes along its banks and a diversity of adjacent upland habitats. Today, 95 percent of the historical coastal wetlands have disappeared under fill, steel, and concrete pilings. Several islands in the river have been altered, eroded, or used to dispose of contaminated river sediment and industrial waste. Invasive plants, fish, and mussels also have contributed to the river’s degradation. Yet, special places still exist and can be restored alongside the high rises, stadiums, and smoke stacks.

The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge was born of a vision shared by a group of local governments, corporations, and conservation organizations from the United States and Canada. It became a reality when President George W. Bush signed Public Law 108-23 in December 2001. The law established an acquisition boundary for the refuge in the United States and also designated three small river islands, once part of Wyandotte National Wildlife Refuge, for inclusion. The new refuge’s habitats include islands, coastal wetlands, marshes, shoals, and riverfront lands along 42 miles of the lower Detroit River and western Lake Erie in Michigan. The law calls for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to establish partnerships with Canada and local communities and to enter into cooperative land management agreements with private landowners. To that end, the Service, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and Environment Canada are currently developing a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (Plan) to guide the refuge for the next 15 years.

The habitats protected and restored by the refuge will provide a hospice for 65 fish species and some 300 species of migratory birds, including 29 waterfowl species. The lower half of the river sits at the intersection of the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways and connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. Some 3 million migrating waterfowl naturally follow the western shoreline of Lake Erie, where they stop to rest and feed in the river and in its nearby marshes. Over 300,000 diving ducks, primarily canvasback and greater and lesser scaups, feed in the river’s wild celery beds. The 1986 North American Waterfowl Management Plan included the river’s ecosystem in one of its 34 waterfowl habitat areas of major concern. The river’s importance to wildlife and people is further reflected by two national designations: American Heritage River and Canadian Heritage River. And, several marshes along the river’s lower region are Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network sites.

The Canadian government has not designated formal boundaries for a sister refuge, but conservation efforts on the Canadian side of the river are being guided in concert with the refuge’s goals and the binational Conservation Vision for the Lower Detroit River Ecosystem. Environment Canada has been working in partnership with the Service and Canadian agencies to achieve a compatible and shared focus for fish and wildlife habitat conservation.

The forthcoming Plan will provide guidance for inventorying resources, will include recommendations regarding the conservation of remaining coastal habitats, and will identify ways in which industry, local governments, and private landowners can enhance their lands to benefit wildlife. Meanwhile, collaborative habitat protection and restoration work is underway in several locations. For example, in the United States a cooperative management agreement has been signed to restore habitat on a 500-acre nuclear energy facility, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is transferring property to the refuge for protection.

A positive view for the future of the Detroit River and Lake Erie’s western basin reflects an abiding faith in nature. Do we look at what has been lost, wring our hands, and give up? Or, do we identify what remains and what we can recover, value it, and work for its preservation? Our positive outlook is influenced by the persistence of wildlife: despite the almost complete conversion of the river’s banks to concrete and steel, despite the loss of nearly all the coastal wetlands, and despite decades of industrial pollution, the birds still come, as they have for millennia, looking for what they need to survive—we can’t let them down.

For more information, contact Gary Muehlenhardt, Wildlife Biologists U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Conservation Planning, 1 Federal Drive, Fort Snelling, Minnesota 55111, (612) 713-5477, gary_muehlenhardt@fws.gov, or John Merriman, Issues Coordinator, Environment Canada, 867 Lakeshore Road, P.O. Box 5050, Burlington, Ontario L7R 4A6, (905) 336-4962, john.merriman@ec.gc.ca.

Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge Partners

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Friends of the Detroit River
Ducks Unlimited, Inc.
The Nature Conservancy
Trust for Public Lands
Environment Canada
Essex Region Conservation Authority
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
Ducks Unlimited Canada
The Nature Conservancy of Canada
Canada South Land Trust

An Unexpected Dividend
by Lew Crouch, Cheeha-Combahee Plantation

Shortly after the end of World War II, the owners of Cheeha-Combahee Plantation on South Carolina’s lower Combahee River embarked on a business venture that would affect thousands of waterfowl, wading birds, shorebirds, and other wetland-associated species for more than a half-century.

With a goal of recovering operating costs, the owners developed a business plan, one element of which was to invest in the building of a 1,500-acre impoundment in the river’s brackish tidal marsh. By constructing banks, ditching, and controlling water levels, they established a pasture area in which to raise beef cattle, which would be sold to help offset the plantation’s operating expenses. For 15 years, that impoundment, known simply as “Magwood,” served the grazing needs of several hundred head of cattle.

As you might expect, though, the plan went afoul as the law of cause-and-effect came into play. The prolonged drying out of the wetland caused the soil’s pH to plummet, and the marsh grasses needed to maintain the pasture began to die. By 1962, the Magwood bovine project was abandoned. There was a silver lining, however. The owners used the same mechanisms that had been employed to convert the wetlands into pasture to transform Magwood back to a brackish-water marsh. For many years thereafter, the rehydrated impoundment was a magnet for thousands of ducks, ibises, egrets, and herons. Magwood remained as such until the early 1990s, when the plantation changed hands. A second silver lining appeared: the new owners—eight individuals—had an interest in wetland habitat management. They made extensive repairs to the impoundment’s banks and installed new water-control structures to enhance wetland management.

Magwood has been an important wintering area for migratory waterfowl, such as northern pintail and American black duck, but its habitat quality had seriously declined over the 50 years of manipulation. In 2001, a third silver lining was found behind the habitat-quality cloud. The plantation’s owners wanted to further improve the marsh and engaged others to help. The partners received a $22,445 North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant to which they added $26,270. They used the funds to renovate miles of ditches that had been dug 50 years earlier, excavate new ditches, and install another water-control structure. These changes enhanced the owners’ ability to manage Magwood’s water and salinity levels to obtain the desired vegetation.

The improvement in water quality and subsequent enhancement of marsh vegetation was noted almost immediately. While visits by traditional migrants such as American wigeons, gadwalls, glossy ibises, American bitterns, and southern bald eagles continued during the winter of 2001-2002, there were also newcomers: white pelicans. Spring and summer visitors also seemed to approve of the marsh’s renewal. Nesting use by several species, including black-necked stilts, least bitterns, willets, and mottled ducks, and feeding use by wood storks, black terns, and Forster’s terns has increased.

There is a moral to this story: what may be a disastrous financial investment for one can mean profits and big dividends for another. In this case, it’s a payoff for the birds.

For more information, contact Lew Crouch, General Manager, Cheeha-Combahee Plantation, 9524 Wiggins Road, Green Pond, South Carolina 29446, (843) 844-2781.

Magwood Enhancement Project Partners

Ducks Unlimited, Inc.
The Nature Conservancy
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
Nemours Wildlife Foundation
Cheeha-Combahee Plantation

Safety in Numbers
by Ed Swan, Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust

Washington State’s 96-square-mile Vashon Island is a rural outpost in the middle of highly developed central Puget Sound. Like Sherman's march to the sea, urban sprawl from Seattle to the east, Tacoma to the south, and Bremerton to the west has devoured much of the sound’s natural landscape. To the north, Bainbridge Island, with a bridge to the mainland, has nearly succumbed as well.

Vashon Islanders, aware of the advance, feared for their island home and bucolic lifestyle. At the end of the 1980s, a group of residents formed the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust (Land Trust) to preserve some of the best wetlands and salmon habitat remaining in the sound’s central region. High on their priority list was the Christensen Creek watershed, including its headwaters, Christensen Pond. In the 1990s, the Land Trust assembled a coalition of several landowners to protect more than 100 acres along the creek, working toward creating a patchwork of conservation easements and county open space that meanders to the pond’s property. Then, in 2001, a miracle happened: the 30-acre parcel that contained the pond was offered for sale.

"It was a neighbor who notified us about the availability of the 30 acres and the pond," said Donna Klemka, a Land Trust board member. "We moved quickly to purchase what is now called the Christensen Pond Bird Preserve. We have been able to preserve the hydrology and habitat of a huge section of the watershed, including an easement at the estuary, significant riparian areas, and the pond. The preserve is a piece of heaven. As you step off the road toward the south-end ferry, you are embraced by the wood’s greenery and birds’ songs."

The Land Trust and its partners received a $47,200 North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant in 2002 to help purchase the property. The partners raised $414,200 more to close the deal.

The 5-acre pond and its 20 acres of associated wetlands have been undisturbed for decades. These habitats are crucial to sustaining the island’s surface-water supply and to recharging the island’s sole aquifer. They are also important to a myriad of wildlife species. The pond provides good habitat for amphibians, and the creek offers nursery habitat for salmon and a playground for otters. The pond’s size and isolation make it ideal breeding habitat for hooded mergansers and wood ducks. The mixed coniferous/deciduous forest adjoining the pond appeals to many neotropical migrants. Four warbler species, Wilson’s, orange-crowned, Townsend’s, and yellow-rumped, and the Pacific-slope flycatcher are common in the preserve. Rufous hummingbirds and band-tailed pigeons, both on the Audubon Society Watch List, also inhabit the woods. Great blue herons and bald eagles drop in on the pond for a snack, and at night, barred owls prowl through the woods. Fifty-four bird species have been spotted on the preserve.

The project’s measure of success can be accounted for in many ways. Its benefits to wildlife are an obvious measure, but the effect it had on uniting the island’s residents to protect something dear to them may top the list.

For more information, contact Tom Dean, Executive Director, Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust, P.O. Box 2031, Vashon, Washington 98070, (206) 463-2644, info@vashonlandtrust.org.

Christensen Pond Bird Preserve Partners

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
King County Conservation Futures
Horizons Foundation
Kirkwood Family Foundation
Vashon-Maury Island Audubon Society
Martin Miller Foundation
Multiple private family foundations
Vashon-Maury Island residents
Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust

Mother Nature: An Industrial Application
by Tony Pace, Parsons Corporation

Although the sun has been up for almost an hour, it’s just now rising over the bluffs along southwestern Ohio’s Great Miami River. It’s mid-June and the fog is beginning to lift from over a pond and its adjacent wetlands. Swallows are busy at work, swooping and dipping into the still water. A red-winged blackbird sits atop a cattail singing his morning song. The sounds of what seems to be a babbling creek can be heard among the peeps, chirps, croaks, and whistles of the birds, frogs, and other wildlife. A doe and her fawn wander through the landscape and contentedly nibble on new vegetative growth.

You’re probably surmising this is a scene from some remote stretch along the river. It’s actually a fairly typical day at ChevronTexaco’s former Cincinnati Refinery, which now contains a constructed treatment wetland. The site sits on the outskirts of suburbia, only 17 miles west of Cincinnati. Built by Gulf Oil Corporation, the refinery began operating in 1931. Chevron acquired it, along with a half-century’s build up of hydrocarbon-based contaminants, during its merger with Gulf Oil in 1985. In 1986, Chevron ceased production at the 45,000-barrel-per-day operation. Various decommissioning and remediation activities have been under way since then, the most significant being the installation of a several-million-gallon-per-day groundwater pumping and treatment operation.

As is often the case, necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, however, necessity was the mother of utilization. The existing settling pond was slated for decommissioning as part of remediation activities, and an alternative was required. In this day and age, new wastewater technologies are continuously being developed. However, ChevronTexaco opted to use a pond/wetland system, a technology pioneered by Mother Nature. The system consists of a series of gravity-fed ponds. The first pond acts as a settling pond to remove solids. The other two, constructed in parallel, are much shallower than the first and filled with native wetland plants that “polish” the water prior to discharge. The main difference between a constructed treatment wetland and a natural wetland is that the former is designed to treat pre-processed wastewater and the latter typically treats storm-water/agricultural runoff.

Having been in operation for a little over a year, we celebrated the wetlands’ construction during the spring of 2003 with the first of hopefully many wood duck hatches. Three broods were discovered in June, comprised of 8 to15 ducklings each. Raptors also have been found in the wetlands, including American kestrels and a breeding pair of red-tailed hawks. The habitat complex attracts resident species as well. Serving as a nursery of sorts, there have been regular sightings throughout the complex of deer, rabbits, and wild turkeys with their offspring. White-tailed deer doe are especially appreciative of the tall, warm-season grasses and forbs planted around the complex’s perimeter, as it gives them a secure place to leave their fawns as they browse. Approximately 300 trees and shrubs were planted to provide food and shelter for wildlife.

In replacing an aging wastewater treatment facility, ChevronTexaco has returned wetlands and grassland prairie to a nearly century-old industrial site.

For more information, contact Tony Pace, Geologist, Parsons Corporation, c/o Chevron Environmental Management Company, P.O. Box 96, North Bend, Ohio 45052, (513) 353-1323 extension 29, lnrp@chevrontexaco.com.

The Heart of a Community
by Thomas Abello, The Nature Conservancy

What does it take to protect the heart of a community? That’s what the people of Parsonsfield, Maine, population 1,500, were asking themselves when 8,600 acres of forested lands that had added to the quality of their lives were slated to be auctioned off as several parcels. At stake was the largest block of managed forestland south of Sebago Lake: the Leavitt Plantation Forest.

The prospect of fragmenting this forest was staggering. For generations, it had provided forestry-related jobs—significant to the local economy—and opportunities to hike, hunt, fish, and snowmobile—equally significant to the locals’ lifestyles. Subdividing the forest did not bode well for wildlife. From moose to bobcat, from American bittern to wood duck, the loss of habitat spelled “problems.”

The town’s residents were not alone in their concerns. Thanks to Renewable Resources, a timber management company that wanted to buy the land intact and keep it in production, an opportunity arose to forestall the auction and save the forest. But to do so, the company needed some financial help. . .the kind it could get by selling a conservation easement to protect the forest’s ecological values.

That’s where a coalition of public and private organizations led by The Nature Conservancy (Conservancy) entered the picture. The Conservancy approached the Maine Department of Conservation to see if it was willing to take title to an easement on the property. It was, if its covenants required sustainable forestry practices, protection of native wildlife, and public access for traditional recreational uses. The next step: negotiating the easement and raising $2.8 million to pay for it.

The town’s residents got the ball rolling when they voted to have $50,000 of their tax revenues allocated to saving the plantation. As it turned out, this was the foundation upon which success was built. Many stepped forward to make personal contributions—the Conservancy and Parsonsfield-area residents amassed another $575,000.

With nearly 800 acres of wetlands on the property—ideal habitat for migratory songbirds such as veery, purple finch, and chestnut-sided warbler—the partnership then applied for a $50,000 North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant, which they received.

The partnership continued to grow. The board of Land for Maine’s Future, a state-funded conservation program, liked what was happening and joined in with $1.2 million. The Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund contributed another $50,000, noting the overwhelming support of selectmen, planning board members, county commissioners, local businesses, outfitters, and educators.

With such active support of the area’s citizenry, this story shouldn’t only be about raising money, but there’s one more pecuniary chapter: $600,000 more was needed. The State sent a proposal to the USDA Forest Service for a $600,000 Forest Legacy grant. A celebration followed, as the awarded grant assured that the plantation would remain unfragmented, providing good homes for wildlife, access for the public, and opportunities for sustainable forest management.

In the end, a town is tied to the fate of its lands. For Parsonsfield, generations to come will be able to explore the wonders of the Leavitt Plantation Forest. They can thank a broad-based partnership that blended the strengths of all the organizations and people involved.

For more information, contact Thomas Abello, Communications Coordinator, The Nature Conservancy, Maine Chapter, 14 Maine Street, Suite 401, Brunswick, Maine 04011, (207) 729-5181, tabello@tnc.org.