Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 10, Number 1 • January-February 2002
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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John Ritzenthaler
Audubon Ohio
Dike 14, a human-made landform jutting out into Lake Erie just four miles east of downtown Cleveland has become important bird habitat. The area was created because regulations in the Clean Water Act of 1972 required that polluted sediments dredged from the Cuyahoga River be contained. The Dike 14 impoundment was filled between 1980 and 1999 with dredged material unsuitable for open lake discharge.
During its history, this dredge site has become a bird magnet on this urban Lake Erie shoreline. There is no other stopover site as attractive to migrants along a 60-mile expanse of shore. Since its creation, it has become critical to healthy bird populations that use the central Lake Erie Basin. But now, when the man-made peninsula is at a healthy habitat level, there are plans to dump more fill on the site and/or to level it off completely, which would destroy the existing wildlife values of the site, including critical stopover habitats for migratory birds.
The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority (Port Authority) has applied for a Submerged Land Lease (Lease) that may make it easier for the Port Authority to dump dredge on critical areas of Dike 14. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has held a public meeting to receive comments regarding the application for a Submerged Land Lease. The Port Authority is under Federal mandate to maintain the structural components of Dike 14. Therefore, it is important that the Lease clearly limit the Port Authority’s use of Dike 14. If the Lease were to include strict limitations on designated maintenance activities, the Port Authority would not be able to dump dredge on critical wildlife areas.
Responding to requests after a successful wetlands workshop last summer, Audubon Ohio is planning another for the upcoming year. Our goal is to reach wetland activists with practical information about conservation, biology, policy, regulations, fundraising, and/or grassroots action.
Last year’s workshop left the participants requesting similar sessions that might target other subjects and allow additional in-depth training. The networking at such gatherings is very valuable to both established activists and those newly energized.
We will announce the workshop here as soon as it is formalized. If you have suggestions for topics, activities, or locations, please contact John Ritzenthaler (see above).
The dollar amount sounds large but the loss is larger—wetland forest has lost in the end. The SWANCC decision of 2001 left the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers treating high quality, forested wetlands as “isolated” and nonjurisdictional. At the time, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) quickly informed a developer, Heritage Development Company, that such wetlands were still protected under state law. Unconvinced of the state’s position and ignoring any natural values of the land in Northeast Ohio, the developer clear-cut a forested wetland, thereby destroying the mature forest and devastating the high quality habitat. The actions resulted in a lawsuit brought by the State of Ohio last summer.
Recently, the developer agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty for clear-cutting the trees and destroying the forested wetlands. The fine is the largest ever imposed by the Ohio EPA in a wetlands case. The penalty came as part of a settlement agreement after a Geauga County Common Pleas Court judge ruled in late January that the company acted improperly. The settlement also instructs Heritage Development Company to buy 32.5 acres of wetlands and forest for preservation and develop 5 acres of high-quality wetlands near the original site.
About $500,000 of the fine will be placed into an escrow account to help the Geauga County Park District buy and preserve wetland habitat. The remaining $500,000 will be split between the state for reimbursement for its costs in the case and the Ohio EPA for the Ohio Environmental Education Fund and surface water programs.