A bill has been proposed in Ontario, Canada, to let the public walk along the shoreline without being barred by shoreline property owners. And a state Supreme Court decision ruled that is the case in Michigan. The difference between the Michigan and the Ohio cases is the size of the shoreline around the different lakes, Yankel said.
The shoreline of Lake Erie is very small. The public trust doctrine gives the government the authority to maintain for the public certain resources. The need to win this case is to maintain public access to the shore of Lake Erie, said Kagan.
The public walks along the shoreline, they collect shells and plants, boat in the water and fish in the lake, he said. These areas should not be claimed by private property owners, he said. The position taken by the state and the National Wildlife Federation argues that the public ownership is below the ordinary high water mark, as defined by the U. Army Corps of Engineers. The shoreline access extends to the public. If the court rules against the shoreline property owners, Yankel would prefer if the legislature would change the current law to make it clear that the shoreline is not owned by property owners.
Lake Erie also supports the highest fish production of all the Great Lakes and is considered to be the Walleye capital for the world. Among many things, the Lake Erie watershed is farm country. From the supply of freshwater to the soil itself, the Great Lakes create rich agricultural lands. In fact, half of Canada's prime agricultural lands sit on the north shores of Lake Erie and across to Lake Ontario.
Most of the region surrounding Lake Erie has been intensely urbanized and turned into agricultural land. Here you will find a wide variety of produce, including fruit, grains, and other crops. Erie hosts 17 distinct metropolitan areas, each with populations of over 50, people. Lake Erie also supports billions of dollars in commercial and recreational fisheries, providing jobs for over 10, workers each year. Despite its smaller size, we eat more fish from Lake Erie than all of the other Great Lakes combined!
There are also extensive marshland habitats that are home to a wide variety of plants and animals. Lake Erie is dotted with over 26 islands and a resulting 1, km of shoreline.
These shores continue to provide minerals to the surrounding communities, including salt mines and the largest sandstone quarry in the world in Ohio. Lake Erie was one of the first Great Lakes to be uncovered by the ancient glacier retreat. Thousands of years ago, there was an ancient river that was gradually deepened by the scraping of an ancient retreating glacier.
The shale and limestone rock was eroded to create one long and wide depression. It was uncovered anywhere between 12, and 1 million years ago and eventually reached its current shape and size less than 4, years ago.
In more recent times, the lake suffers from high amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen due to runoff from the surrounding industries. These increased nutrient levels cause periodic algal blooms, creating dead zones by using up all the oxygen in the water.
The blooms even caused a river in Ohio to catch fire in the s! The results from this intense pollution lead to the eventual implementation of the Clean Water Act passed in and continued advocacy and restoration work today. With its extensive beaches and tremendous biological diversity, Lake Erie is a wonder to see. A popular spot to visit is Point Pelee National Park — a star-gazing and bird-viewing haven. Spring brings a symphony of songbirds, while fall brings the Monarch Butterflies and impressive, predatory Raptors a type of predatory bird.
Point Pelee is a dark sky reserve, free from artificial light pollution, highlighting skies peppered with millions of stars. During the breeding season, off-shore islands provide nesting locations for colonies of gulls, cormorants, terns, egrets, and herons. The water bodies and associated habitats provide both thermals and prey to assist birds of prey raptors as they migrate. Raptor migration along the south shore of Lake Erie is unlike other well-known migration sites in that there is no single cliff face, ridge, or funneling point to concentrate soaring birds into one main flight path.
Therefore, reluctant to cross the open waters of Lake Erie, where no thermals will form, these migrating hawks, vultures, accipiters, and eagles follow the lakeshore westward, curving around Maumee Bay and then head north for distant nesting grounds. Especially concentrated in early spring, as many as raptors may pass overhead daily.
Lake Erie marshes make up the largest stopover habitats in the eastern United States between coastal habitats and northern breeding areas. More than 30 species of shorebirds migrate through the Lake Erie marshes each year, but different species as well as different ages within a species appear at different times of the year and choose different microhabitats.
Species timing, habitat availability and utilization all affect numbers of shorebirds use marshes and flooded farm fields during their twice-a-year migration through the Lake Erie watersheds. Sixty to , birds have been counted in the marsh region of NW Ohio in a single year.
This designation exemplifies the value of these wetlands for supplying shorebirds with necessary habitat and food for their long-distance migration. Future land acquisition and restoration grants will be boosted in value because of this Regional Shorebird status.
The Lake Erie shore and its immediate environs offer some of the best birding in the Great Lakes region. The 84 trail sites represent over 30 federal, state, county, and local park districts and management agencies. In , about , out-of-state-birders visited Ohio, with Lake Erie the most popular destination. As bird and other wildlife-watcher numbers continue to grow, it is important that local businesses realize the impact that these visitors have on their bottom line.
Lake Erie Waterkeeper seeks to identify opportunities and challenges for the waters in the Central Basin, which begins east of the Huron River and goes to the Pennsylvania border. A major water quality issue in central basin is the dead zone — an oxygen depleted area caused by dying algae. To ensure the long term health of our lake, Lake Erie Waterkeeper is committed to working in close collaboration with existing sub-watershed groups, educators, civic organizations and others to promote water as a resource and to share information on what water means to the economy, community and homes.
Lake Erie Waterkeeper is a grassroots organization that succeeds through the involvement of its members. Join us, tell some friends, and get involved today! How can I get involved? There are dozens of ways you can join forces with Lake Erie Waterkeeper in its mission to monitor and improve the lake and its watershed:. With membership, you will be included in our volunteer database, receive newsletters and emails. Background by John Hageman Lake Erie supports a variety of fish that are generally characterized as either warm water or cool water fish types.
While the warm water fish species may prefer water that is typically found in the Western Basin, the cool water fish species cannot tolerate warm water and only roam west in the winter and spring to spawn, if at all. Native warm water sport fish species include walleyes, yellow perch, white bass and the black bass smallmouth and largemouth , other sunfish such as rock bass, black and white crappies, bluegill and pumpkinseed and channel catfish and a few other bullhead species.
Minnows include bluntnose, fathead and emerald, spottail, spotfin, golden, mimic and sand shiners, lake chubsucker and silver chub to name a few. Brook silversides provide additional food for predatory fish.
The most numerous bait fish species in the lake is the introduced eastern gizzard shad, widely believed to have entered through the Ohio-Erie canal. The alewife, white perch and sea lamprey all entered the Great Lakes through the canals that were built to allow ships to go around Niagara Falls. All three of these species have reached nuisance populations due to their high reproductive rates, lack of specific predators and favorable conditions for their survival.
Other numerous, but less targeted or appreciated species include the freshwater drum, bowfin, longnose gar and northern pike, Great Lakes muskellunge and variety of suckers such as quillback, white sucker, bigmouth buffalo and the golden and shorthead redhorse.
Cool water species of importance include the lake whitefish, lake trout, burbot, steelhead trout and rainbow smelt. Cool water fish not of commercial or sportfishing significance but important prey include the trout perch and mottled sculpin, a species becoming uncommon due to competition from the invasive gobies. Other species were stocked by government agencies, but failed to take such as Atlantic salmon, American shad, chain pickerel, white catfish and a few other species of Pacific salmon such as coho, Chinook and sockeye which persist as migrants coming from the upper lakes.
Expect more to come, as the problem of ballast water introductions and the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds remain connected, which will allow more species to enter Lake Erie, including the silver, bigeye and black carp. Also, the European river ruffe, which was first seen in Lake Superior, is expected to expand into the lower lakes.
While the above list is incomplete, it contains all of the species of sport, commercial, bait or other value. In all, over species have been documented. The Erie Canal was constructed in creating a species pathway from the Atlantic Ocean and the St. For awhile Niagara Falls acted as a barrier to keeping the invasives from getting into Lake Erie.
Then in the St. Lawrence Seaway opened creating an invasive pathway from around the globe. Some invasive plants and animals entered the Great Lakes through the release of aquarium pets, fish aquaculture operations, bait bucket releases, intentional releases like the common carp that went awry.
Controlling Phragmites — the Invasive plant we see along the highways and shorelines of Lake Erie is challenging. Phragmites looks like seagrass, but its root system is dense and snuffs out native cattails and reduces habitat for turtles, frogs and more. Homeowners can control phragmites, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, by using an integrated pest management approach which includes an initial herbicide treatment followed by mechanical removal e.
For large areas with dense stands of phragmites, prescribed burning used after herbicide treatment can provide additional control and ecological benefits over mechanical removal. Early detection is key to preventing large dense stands and is also more cost-efficient.
Permits may be required for phragmites treatment. Pennsylvania phragmites control information. The total watershed covers 8, square miles. The mainstem of the Maumee River is approximately miles in total length with 25 miles in Indiana and miles in Ohio. It begins in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. The headwaters are the St. Joes, the St. Marys and the Maumee in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The highest elevations of 1, feet above mean sea level occur in the Michigan portion of the watershed. At Maumee Bay the river is feet above mean sea level, dropping an average of 1.
The steepest section is between Waterville, Ohio and Maumee, Ohio at 5 feet per mile. Daily average discharge ranges from a high of 94, cubic feet per second CFS to a low of 32 cfs, and contributes about 50 percent of the total tributary discharge into Lake Erie, exclusive of the Detroit River. A large part of the basin south of the river near Toledo is in the area formerly covered by the Great Black Swamp. The Great Black Swamp was covered with wet forests of hardwood, shallow lakes, and wet prairies.
In a law providing for public ditches was passed. This law resulted in the entire Black Swamp being drained through extensive ditch systems, and more people began to settle there. By , most of the Great Black Swamp was gone. It has been estimated that there are three miles of man-made ditches to every mile of natural stream.
Drainage ditches make productive farming possible, but many do not provide fish or wildlife habitat. Ditches that lack buffer areas and are farmed up to the ditch bank provide a route for nutrients and sediment runoff to the river. Despite draining and channelizing streams, the Swamp is still there. It remains subject to flooding. Black Swamp streams could be good candidates for restoration and reestablishment of habitat by expanding floodplains and wetlands.
Habitat areas on these headwater streams support the base of the food chain which ultimately feeds Lake Erie. The Oak Openings Region is a square mile area supporting globally rare oak savanna and wet prairie habitats. It is home to more rare species of plants and animals than any other area of Ohio. Its trees, plants, sandy soils, wet prairies, and floodplains benefit the region by acting as natural filters for our air and water.
It is widely agreed from government agencies to citizen groups that the Oak Openings Region with its wet prairies and savannas, together with the connecting corridors along the Maumee River, Swan Creek, and Ottawa River should be given the priority for preservation. By maintaining the natural character of these areas, they will continue to benefit humans and wildlife long into the future.
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