Category: Other

Finger Lakes National Forest staff and partners were able to replace invasive grasses at Backbone Campground, Overlook Trailhead, and the parking area at Caywood Point with native species, thanks to funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. 

Partners were also key in restoring the areas for pollinators. The USDA Plant Materials Center provided short term seed storage prior to propagation, space to prepare seeds for planting, greenhouse space to grow about 2,000 plugs, and expertise in in the field. In addition, a crew Finger Lakes Community College and a crew from CorpsTHAT!, a program dedicated to connecting the Deaf Community and the outdoors through education, recreation, and careers, helped put the new plants in the ground.

The species of native forbs and grasses planted will provide pollinators with nectar through the growing season as well as habitat to overwinter in the stems and leaf litter of the newly planted species.  

Read the full story. 

This fall the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency completed a Drum Removal Pilot Study in the Hubbell Processing Area (HPA) of the Torch Lake Area of Concern (AOC). The work was performed as part of the Great Lakes Legacy Act sediment and drum remediation as a partnership between EPA and Honeywell International, in close coordination with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and other community stakeholders.  

As part of past evaluations and work performed by EPA and Honeywell, over 400 metal 55-gallon drums have been identified on the lakebed of Torch Lake in the HPA at various water depths, ranging from approximately 20 feet to over 70 feet in depth. Drums noted during underwater video surveys appear in various stages of deterioration with contaminated sediment present in the area of the drums.

EPA’s contractors removed approximately 100 drums as well as debris and contaminated sediment from three areas at differing water depths. 

Turbidity curtains and bubble curtains, which help control residual sediment movement during dredging, were in place throughout drum and sediment removal operations. Extensive monitoring was performed during dredging activities that will help in the development of a larger cleanup project. Drums, debris and sediment removed were temporarily staged prior to be transported to a disposal facility.

The in-water portion of the pilot study was completed in late September with material transportation to the landfill completed in early November. The Drum Removal Pilot Study will assist in the evaluation of drum removal and cleanup options at various water depths, which is a critical component of the ongoing Torch Lake HPA Feasibility Study. 

Learn more about remediation and restoration work in the Torch Lake AOC. 

Over $500,000 of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding is being distributed by the Great Lakes Commission (GLC) through the Phragmites Adaptive Management Framework (PAMF) to improve management outcomes for treatment of the non-native Phragmites australis (common reed). Phragmites is a fast-growing non-native wetland plant species that has invaded much of the Great Lakes Basin. Phragmites can spread rapidly and outcompete native vegetation, thus contributing to landscape-scale ecological degradation. An extensive amount of time, effort, and resources are spent annually to control this problematic species, but site-specific guidance on best management approaches is still limited. To address this gap in management guidance, the Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative (GLPC), a collaboration between the Great Lakes Commission, U.S. Geological Survey, University of Georgia, and other academic and management organizations, created and ultimately implemented the PAMF program in 2017. 

PAMF is a participatory science program designed by the GLPC, including an interdisciplinary Science Advisory Team and Technical Working Group. The program uses Phragmites management data provided by land managers from around the Great Lakes Basin to help a predictive computer model “learn” about which Phragmites management approaches achieve the best outcomes. The model predicts which management actions will be most effective, and then each summer PAMF offers this guidance to participating land managers for the following year. The model outputs improve each year as incoming data characterize how the plant responded to the previous year of management. However, some management actions in the model are not widely used by managers and thus are underrepresented in the model. Therefore, a new Active Adaptive Management Program (AAMP) was initiated in 2024 to stimulate application and data collection of underrepresented treatment combinations, accelerate model learning, and improve management outcomes.

In March 2024, PAMF-AAMP released a request for proposals, through which land managers could apply for individual grants (most ranging from $5,000-$30,000) that provide the financial resources for testing specific management predictions. In September of 2024, the first round of individual grant recipients was announced, and management actions began shortly thereafter. For at least the next two years, AAMP participants will implement, monitor, and report impacts of specific Phragmites management actions that have fewer representation in the PAMF model data inputs. Results from this targeted AAMP program will be used to refine the PAMF predictive model and improve the effectiveness of future Phragmites management efforts.

Learn more about the Phragmites Adaptive Management Framework and the Active Adaptive Management Program. 

A $193,500 USDA Forest Service Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant is helping maintain and improve water quality in Euclid, Ohio. The grant to Cleveland Metroparks is allowing partners to plant trees, reduce soil compaction and enhance a riparian buffer along Euclid Creek. 

Cleveland Metroparks is the grant recipient and leads the project operations. The GLRI grant provided all the funding for the trees and herbaceous plants, plus rain gardens and deer fencing, and funds for the contractors to plant trees.

Euclid might not be a well-known community, but the nearby Cuyahoga River was once so polluted it made international headlines in the late 1960s through 1970s when it caught fire at least 14 times.

Teri Chuprinko, the USDA Forest Service grant monitor for the project, said the river has improved considerably since the ‘70s. “Today, the river can sustain fish and other wildlife. Organizations like Cleveland Metroparks are restoring riparian buffers and reducing stormwater runoff in the watershed to help maintain and improve water quality.”

The Euclid project is at the site of a former middle school with a sports complex that caused the soil to become heavily compacted after decades of being under the pavement and structures there. As part of the project, Cleveland Metroparks purchased a soil spader — still being put to use by cooperators on other projects around Cleveland — to decompact and amend the soil, which has been shown to greatly improve tree planting, survival and growth.

Read more about the project.