Detroit River and Western Lake Erie: Restoring to the Future

1. Karen Rodriguez U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office 312-353-2690 rodriguez.karen@epa.gov Detroit River and Western Lake Erie: Restoring to the Future

2. This country is so temperate, so fertile, so beautiful, that it may be called the earthly paradise of North America. Antoine de Cadillac 1702

3. Swans Ojibway Prairie

4. We—human beings—are part of 'biodiversity.' We are dependent on the whole food chain down below us Darrell Merrell, heirloom vegetable farmer

6. The Great Lakes contain 6 Quadrillion gallons of water

7. 18% of world’s and 95% of North America’s fresh surface water

8. Daily, 56 billion gallons of water are used by municipalities, agriculture, and industry

9. 42 million people depend on the Great Lakes for their drinking water

10. 17,000 kilometers of coastline

11. 600 sand beaches in the U.S.

12. World’s largest collection of freshwater sand dunes

13. 31,000 islands

14. 217,000 hectares of coastal wetlands

15. $1 billion/year recreational fishing industry

16. 70 million people visit parks annually

17. $100 billion in world trade

18. Persistent harmful chemicals have been an enduring legacy for at least a hundred years, posing a threat to human and wildlife health

19. Invasive nuisance species are disrupting the food web and causing billions of dollars in damage to infrastructures such as water intakes. It appears the fishery is being affected

20. Destruction of habitats such as wetlands and river corridors, is resulting in diminished ecosystem services

21. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

23. Great Lakes Regional Collaboration

24. Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

27. Bass Great blue heron Whitefish Lake sturgeon Walleye Bald eagle Peregrine falcon

28. Canvasback Wild celery Diving Duck

29. Belle Isle Ojibway Prairie

30. Ecosystem services are the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that are part of them, help sustain and fulfill human life.

31. State-of-the-Art Approaches for Assessment of Great Lakes Nearshore and Large River Fish Habitat • Rivers—lack of real time monitoring; channel habitat data; large river floodplains • Nearshore—no comprehensive survey of bathymetry, substrate and vegetation; no uniform classification system across the basin

32. Habitat Modification • Rehabilitation emphasizes the reparation of ecosystem processes, productivity and services, not pre-existing integrity • Reclamation, usually applied to mining, is the stabilization of the terrain, assurance of public safety, aesthetic improvement, and usually a return of the land to what, within the regional context, is considered to be a useful purpose • Mitigation is an action that is intended to compensate environmental damage • Creation is conducted as mitigation on terrain that is entirely devoid of vegetation • Ecological engineeringinvolves manipulation of natural materials, living organisms and the physical-chemical environment to achieve specific human goals and solve technical problems

33. What is ecological restoration? • Ecological restoration is the process of assisting with the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed

34. Habitat restoration timeline • Sources controlled • Sites restored • On a trajectory to full recovery Full recovery Trajectory On the road to recovery Restoration activities Long term monitoring

35. What interventions are employed in ecological restoration? • Interventions employed in ecological restoration vary widely among projects and programs • Removal or modification of a specific disturbance • Deliberate reintroduction of native species • Facilitate the resumption of those processes which will return the ecosystem to its intended trajectory

36. Eastern Lake Ontario

37. Ashland, Wisconsin

38. Miller Woods, IN

39. Indigenous ecological management • Ecological restoration may include the recovery of indigenous ecological management practices, including support for the cultural survival of indigenous people and their languages as living libraries of ecological knowledge • What makes ecological restoration especially inspiring is that cultural practices and ecological processes can be mutually reinforcing

40. What is meant by “recovery” in ecological restoration? • An ecosystem has recovered - and is restored - when it contains sufficient biotic and abiotic resources to continue its development without further assistance or subsidy Before After Ft. Erie, Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority

41. Regenerating System Living Systems Understanding Whole Systems Relationships Understanding Diversity Reciprocity Regenerative Humans participating as nature – Co-evolution of the Whole System Restorative Humans doing things to nature – assisting the evolution of sub-systems Less energy required More stable More energy required Less stable Sustainable Natural – 100% less bad’(McDonough) Technologies Techniques Fragmented Monoculture Green LEED, Green Globe, GB tool, etc. Conventional Practice ‘One step better than breaking the law’ (Croxton) Trajectory of Environmental Design(Reed, 2006; Modified by Bowers, 2007) Degenerating System

42. Woodland, Belle Isle Belanger Park

43. Restoring to the future requires: • Understanding ecosystems • Development and use of appropriate tools • Linking ecological restoration and economic development • Sharing information • Partnerships The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river Ross Perot

44. Mud Island Humbug Marsh Lake sturgeon Belle Isle Chorus frog

46. Oak Savanna, Ojibway

47. Black Lagoon

48. Elias Cove

49. Langlois St. to Moy Ave.