Habitat Restoration in Priority Coastal Areas

About Habitat Restoration in Priority Coastal Areas

The Great Lakes Commission (GLC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are leading efforts to restore priority coastal areas around the Great Lakes basin. The GLC implements restoration work through a NOAA cooperative agreement which allows key projects in priority coastal areas to receive critical funding for habitat restoration.

The NOAA-GLC 2018 non-AOC cooperative agreement included two projects within the St. Clair-Detroit River System with two local partners. GLC was awarded year 1 funding for engineering and design of a shoreline restoration project at Brandenburg Park and Engineering and Design as well as implementation for a wetland and shoreline restoration project at Lake Erie Metropark. While located outside the targeted Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs), both project sites have been prioritized for restoration to improve native fish habitat, hydrologic connectivity, and restore hardened shorelines. Brandenburg Park was renewed for year 2 funding and implementation of the project was completed in 2023. These projects restored approximately 1,923 linear feet of hardened shoreline, 3.22 acres of nearshore habitat, and 1.7 acres of coastal marsh habitat.

An additional non-AOC project, the Powderhorn Lake Connectivity project, was funded as part of the 2019 NOAA-GLC partnership and reconnected Powderhorn Lake with Wolf Lake and, ultimately, Lake Michigan. .