Hearding Island is a 32 acre island created from the sandy material dredged from the shipping channels in the estuary during the early 1930's. The island was important for colonial waterbirds such as Common Terns and Piping Plovers after it was created. As vegetation encroached on the open, sandy nesting habitat preferred by the terns and plovers, they moved to other, more recently created islands or points.
By the early 1980's suitable habitat for these birds had either been taken over by thick vegetation or had been developed for commercial and industrial purposes. An effort to manage part of Hearding island for colonial waterbirds was successful at reestablishing the sand dune community needed by Terns and Plovers, but the island's proximity to Minnesota point resulted in repeated human disturbance and an influx of predators including red fox and Great Horned Owls. Common Terns responded to habitat restoration at Interstate Island, and Interstate's more remote location proved to be better for minimizing disturbance and predation. This development, and the enhancement of the historic nesting site on Wisconsin Point resulted in abandoning colonial waterbird management activity on Hearding Island.
Since that time in the mid 1980's, the interdunal plant community that covers about one third of the island has flourished. Grasses and flowering plants have colonized much of the open area, leaving some open sand dunes where wind energy is greatest. The remainder of the island is predominantly old aspen-birch forest or dry alder shrub land. On Minnesota Point, the natural community on this type of sand soil would slowly succeed to a White Pine/Red Pine forest with scattered tamarack in some lower and wetter areas. This type of forest community is still present on the less disturbed parts of the Point, but much of it has been lost due to residential development. Beach dune plant communities are also present on the Point, but are very rare elsewhere in the region.
Over the past year we have been meeting with local residents to determine the future of management activity on Hearding Island. Our goal is to develop a management plan based on citizen input and to involve the public in hands on management of the island.
Our preliminary plan is for 30% of the island to remain as an interdunal beach community and 70% of the island to succeed to white pine/red pine forest. To this end we have had volunteers helping to plant 800 White Pine trees, 700 red pine trees and 400 tamarack trees in the areas to become conifer dominated forest. In addition to the tree planting, volunteers are helping to control exotic plants by pulling tansy, an invasive weed of European origin, from the dune community.
Activities in the near future will include maintenance work on the trees planted this summer, more weed control for tansy and purple loosestrife and completing the revisions to the management plan. All of these projects will depend heavily on volunteers with an interest in managing Hearding Island.
A major project in the planning stages for the area around Hearding Island is the Island Creation Project. The Seaway Port Authority of Duluth and the other partners on the Harbor Technical Advisory Committee are investigating the feasibility of using dredge materials to create several small islands between the shipping channel and Hearding island. The purpose of the project is to use clean dredge material for habitat restoration rather than putting it in a confined disposal facility that is designed for more contaminated materials.While most of the islands in the lower harbor are man made, prior to port development, the area between the Blatnik Bridge and the WI Point-Mn Point Bay Mouth Bar system was mostly very shallow with many scattered small islands. The preliminary design for this project mimics that condition to some extent by proposing a series of small barrier islands protecting a shallow area between them and Hearding Island. Planting of desirable aquatic vegetation and providing suitable substrate and structure for fish habitat needs would further enhance the project and replicate some of the conditions that likely existed in the harbor historically.
Several factors are believed to be responsible for the lack of aquatic vegetation in the lower harbor. First, wind and waves interact to make the area hostile to plant survival. Second, sunlight penetrates the dark water of the estuary only to about 3 feet. The barrier islands would provide a protected area of quiet water that would be more favorable to plant growth. By bringing the bottom of the bay up to between 6 inches to three feet of depth, plants will be able to get enough light to survive.
There are still many questions that must be answered before this project moves from the planning and design phase into implementation. More detailed hydrologic studies need to take place to understand the likely effects of any new islands. Standards for the in-water placement of dredged materials need to be established by the Pollution Control Agency. Additional public input needs to be solicited, and rigorous environmental review needs to be completed.
If these issues can be satisfactorily resolved, this project has the potential to provide two very significant benefits: 1) Eliminate the need to site another confined disposal facility for dredged materials, and 2) restore wetland habitat to the lower harbor where very little now exists.
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