How do you protect the world's largest freshwater lake? The short answer: one piece at a time. Though overly simplistic, that answer summarizes a long and involved international process to preserve Lake Superior's ecosystem. The Lake Superior Binational Program, named in reference to the joint cooperation of the United States and Canada, was formed in 1992 to find ways to stem the decline of the large lake's deteriorating environments. Part of this massive, ecosystem-wide project, encompassing thousands of square miles of vast forest and lake, are dozens of individual habitat projects, including several in the Duluth-Superior Harbor and St. Louis River estuary.
The Duluth-Superior Harbor hums from the sound of grain elevators, factories, highway bridges, and ocean-going freighters. Yet within this highly industrialized environment exists a resilient wildness. Walleyes, northern pike, and other fish species swim in the tea-colored water. Beach dunes, marshes, woodlands, and other habitats are home to deer, beavers, coyotes, and foxes, and attract dozens of migrant bird species such as common terns and warblers.
Despite its dogged tenacity, this ecosystem is threatened. Throughout the Lake Superior watershed, the combination of intensive logging, commercial and residential development, and industrial pollution have eaten away at the big lake's water quality and fish and wildlife habitat. Ecologists fear worsening contamination of this most pristine of the Great Lakes. One area in particular that has been targeted for immediate restoration is the St. Louis River estuary, where fish and wildlife habitat has been destroyed by human activities and is threatened by future development. "Nature is remarkably resilient, but there comes a point when things start breaking down," says Pat Collins, Lake Superior habitat coordinator for the DNR Section of Ecological Services.In the Duluth-Superior Harbor, he adds, that point has come for the habitats of several wildlife species.
Fortunately, those habitats are now being helped. As part of its commitment to identify, protect, and restore habitat throughout the Lake Superior watershed, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is paying for habitat projects at Hearding Island Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and Grassy Point.
"Traditionally, EPA dollars would only go to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for pollution abatement," Collins says."What we've got now is EPA dollars also coming into the state for fish and wildlife habitat projects." Collins estimates initial federal funding for both projects will be $250,000.
Some of that money will go toward improving wildlife habitat on Hearding Island, a 30-acre pile of sandy dredge spoils dug from Duluth-Superior Harbor during the 1930s. With most of the harbor having been developed with offices and industry, the island has become a crucial wildlife refuge, particularly for migrating birds such as warblers that funnel into the harbor as they move along the shore of Lake Superior twice each year.
Hearding Island WMA is being planted and managed as a conifer forest with open beach sand dunes similar to the undisturbed portions of Minnesota Point, the 9-mile sand spit separating the estuary from Lake Superior. DNR and state Sentence-to-Serve crews are planting native white pine, red pine, and tamarack. A nearby project being considered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Seaway Port Authority of Duluth would use clean dredge material to build barrier islands - which would protect the island from erosive waves and provide additional dune habitat for shorebirds and waterfowl - and create shallow-water areas where once-common aquatic plants such as wild celery would grow and provide food for ducks and shelter for fish.
Another EPA-funded Duluth-Superior Harbor habitat restoration project will tackle Grassy Point. But first, wildlife managers will have to figure out how to remove tons of weathered boards and other wood debris remaining from turn-of-the-century sawmill operations. The boards block fish passage in Keene Creek, which flows through the area, and prevents the growth of aquatic vegetation.
In the 100-acre Grassy Point wetlands complex, what first appear to be mud flats are actually expanses of semi-submerged wood planks. The DNR project calls for removing the wood from the Keene Creek channel through the wetlands. Once the wood is gone, Grassy Point will provide better habitat for waterfowl, blue herons, and other birds, and fish will again swim in the lower reaches of Keene Creek, says Collins.
Another project, now in its planning stage, could further enhance habitat quality on the point. Developers of a proposed shopping mall along the downtown Duluth waterfront have agreed to remove an old roadbed from a wetland on Grassy Point, thus mitigating the need to fill in 3 1/2 acres of old harbor slips during mall construction. The roadbed would be replaced with a meandering channel.
Grassy Point will also enhance the environmental education of local students. The City of Duluth plans to build a trail connecting the point with the nearby Irving Recreation Area. High school and junior high students participating in the St. Louis River Watch program will use the point as a site for monitoring water quality and other environmental indicators.
Another project not funded by the EPA, but just as important in helping in the Lake Superior restoration, has been the rejuvenation of Miller Creek. Despite running through the heart of the state's fourth-largest city, Miller Creek still holds wild, naturally reproducing brook trout. But it won't for long - at least not without help.
"The Duluth-Hermantown area has thrown just about everything at Miller Creek that a metro area could," says John Spurrier, Duluth-area fisheries supervisor.
The stream starts out near a landfill and an airport, flows through a business park, and is ditched past the parking lots of a retail area and shopping mall. Miller Creek then gets a reprieve as it flows through shady backyards in a residential area, but the last half-mile is tunneled under Duluth streets before it empties into the harbor - right next to a sewage treatment plant.
"When you consider what it has to go through, it's a wonder the stream has any trout, much less brookies," says Spurrier. Fisheries biologists believe that Miller Creek's brook trout can't tolerate much more ecological abuse. During the summer, water temperatures warm nearly to the point where trout can't survive. Further development along the watershed could turn the cool waters of Miller Creek into a warm, fishless ditch.
Fisheries managers have been unable to protect the trout from development that removes shade trees, because DNR permits are required only for activities within the streambed. Fisheries managers weren't the only ones frustrated by Miller Creek's seemingly inevitable demise. In 1994, activist anglers and other environmentalists tired of watching local trout streams disappear formed a task force. Its goals: to combine the expertise and energy of local conservationists with governmental units to protect and restore Miller Creek.
In May 1995, approximately 100 volunteers planted trees along more than a mile of the creek and cleaned up trash along the streambank. This summer, volunteers are monitoring stream temperatures and providing information to help the task force locate and identify cool-flowing feeder springs that can be protected from development.
Considered separately, the projects at Hearding Island, Grassy Point, and Miller Creek are significant to local ecosystems. But when taken together, they represent a unified effort to protect and restore habitat in the St. Louis River estuary and watershed, says Collins. And when considered with other projects now underway along Lake Superior, they show how site-specific projects - when done as part of an ecosystem-wide plan - can help the ecosystem of the largest freshwater lake on earth.
From: Fish and Wildlife Today. Tom Dickson, Editor. Summer 1995, pages 12-13. Fish and Wildlife Today is published four times a year by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Division fo Fish and Wildlife, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155-4020. Phone (612) 297-1308.