Restoration of Frog Island hailed as Buffalo comeback story
After spending the last 30 years submerged under the Niagara River, Frog Island is being restored as a habitat for fish, birds and vegetation
Crews excavated sediment from the river bottom and placed nearly 16,000 cubic yards of stone, gravel and sand in a fast-moving current to build an island between Motor Island and Strawberry Island. Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News Frog Island is back on the map. ¶ The tiny 2-acre or so archipelago between Strawberry and Motor islands spent the last three decades submerged under the current of the Niagara River. ¶ But one of Buffalo Niagara region’s newest ecological restoration projects brought the island back above water this year. ¶ With it, fish are already returning to spawn in large numbers. Birds are flocking to Niagara’s newest island. And, young willow and dogwood trees are taking root. ¶ The effort, by the state Department of Environmental Conservation with funding from the New York Power Authority’s Niagara Power Project relicensing, created new habitat underwater for fish like muskellunge, a shoreline “transition” zone for various native plant species and upland areas for families of Caspian terns. ¶ It’s a bona fide Buffalo comeback story, according to scientists involved with the $4.1 million project.
It happened a few hundred yards off the shoreline and can be seen from the stretch of the Niagara Thruway by GM’s Powertrain plant in the Town of Tonawanda.
Once a place where fish spawned and birds nested, this Niagara River island was obliterated a half-century ago, along with so many other places along Buffalo Niagara’s waterfront, in the name of industrial progress.
Today, the Great Lakes face new threats – toxic algae, Asian carp and microbeads, to name a few. But positive territory is being reclaimed here for nature.
It’s seen at places like Times Beach, the Buffalo River corridor, the new Stella Niagara Preserve and the Frog, Motor, Beaver and Strawberry island archipelago.
Future ecosystem restoration is in the works at the newly renamed Unity Island, at the same time groups in Lackawanna mobilize to take back a 2-mile stretch of contaminated waterfront land where Bethlehem Steel once stood for future cleanup and an eventual return of the property to a productive lakeshore habitat.
But the re-emergence of Frog Island in the Niagara River is special.
“As far as I know, this is the only project of this type seeking to restore habitat in the middle of such a large, fast-moving river,” said Tim DePriest, a biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. “It’s basically engineering an ecosystem restoration from the bottom up.”
Crews excavated sediment from the river bottom and placed nearly 16,000 cubic yards of stone, gravel and sand in a fast-moving current to build an island between Motor Island and Strawberry Island. Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News Frog Island is back on the map. ¶ The tiny 2-acre or so archipelago between Strawberry and Motor islands spent the last three decades submerged under the current of the Niagara River. ¶ But one of Buffalo Niagara region’s newest ecological restoration projects brought the island back above water this year. ¶ With it, fish are already returning to spawn in large numbers. Birds are flocking to Niagara’s newest island. And, young willow and dogwood trees are taking root. ¶ The effort, by the state Department of Environmental Conservation with funding from the New York Power Authority’s Niagara Power Project relicensing, created new habitat underwater for fish like muskellunge, a shoreline “transition” zone for various native plant species and upland areas for families of Caspian terns. ¶ It’s a bona fide Buffalo comeback story, according to scientists involved with the $4.1 million project.
It happened a few hundred yards off the shoreline and can be seen from the stretch of the Niagara Thruway by GM’s Powertrain plant in the Town of Tonawanda.
Once a place where fish spawned and birds nested, this Niagara River island was obliterated a half-century ago, along with so many other places along Buffalo Niagara’s waterfront, in the name of industrial progress.
Today, the Great Lakes face new threats – toxic algae, Asian carp and microbeads, to name a few. But positive territory is being reclaimed here for nature.
It’s seen at places like Times Beach, the Buffalo River corridor, the new Stella Niagara Preserve and the Frog, Motor, Beaver and Strawberry island archipelago.
Future ecosystem restoration is in the works at the newly renamed Unity Island, at the same time groups in Lackawanna mobilize to take back a 2-mile stretch of contaminated waterfront land where Bethlehem Steel once stood for future cleanup and an eventual return of the property to a productive lakeshore habitat.
But the re-emergence of Frog Island in the Niagara River is special.
“As far as I know, this is the only project of this type seeking to restore habitat in the middle of such a large, fast-moving river,” said Tim DePriest, a biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. “It’s basically engineering an ecosystem restoration from the bottom up.”
Fixing a battered island
If the story of the new Frog Island is distinctive, so too are remnants of the old Frog Island.
Thousands of motorists whiz over it along the Tonawanda shoreline every day. It’s now part of the foundation of the Niagara Section of the Thruway.
That’s because the island – and some of nearby Strawberry Island – were mined for gravel and hauled to the nearby shoreline in the 1950s at a time before there were any significant environmental laws in place to stop it.
Then in the mid-1980s, when Great Lakes water levels were at their highest, wind-driven waves, boat wakes, ice scouring and the river current constantly chipped away at Frog Island until it slipped beneath the surface of the water. Shallow shoals – about 1 to 3 feet deep – remained at that part of the river.
Construction to restore the island started in 2013 after a nearly six-year process of planning, design and permitting. It was one of many habitat improvement priorities put forth by the DEC during the New York Power Authority’s 50-year license renewal of the Niagara Power Project in 2007.
The authority estimates it has already provided benefits exceeding $274 million to the region in the form of direct payments, power supply and improvements to recreation and the environment through habitat improvement projects, including those at tiny Frog Island, since the relicensing eight years ago.
“This is a relatively small effort to just put some of that back,” said Stephen M. Schoenwiesner, a New York Power Authority manager. “Give the wildlife a little bit back of what was lost over time.”
It’s not a big area – less than 5 total acres – but a lot happens in that small space.
The four-tiered habitat being put back includes:
• Submerged aquatic vegetation areas, where native plants like root sedges, wild celery and other key aquatic plant species were planted. Experts expect other native plants, such as pondweeds, will colonize the area on their own. The area will prove an important food source for diving ducks, a species that flies south from the arctic region by the tens of thousands to spend the winter in the Buffalo Niagara region, and will provide a protective spawning and nursery habitat for young muskellunge.
• A transition zone for deep emergent wetland species like arrowhead, pickerelweed and bur-reed were planted.
• A second transition zone where shallow emergent wetland plants like sedge, rush and bulrush varieties occupy places in less than 6 inches of water.
• Upland areas, which consist of plantings like dogwood, willow, grasses and other species. It’s about 4,000 square feet of wet meadow habitat designed to help lure and promote pollinators. DePriest said air photos show the upland areas occupy roughly the same land area as the original Frog Island did.
Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper – the organization chartered with the environmental stewardship of the river corridor, enthusiastically endorsed Frog Island’s restoration.
“Nearly half of our historic coastal wetlands have been lost in the past century,” said Renata Kraft, Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper’s director of bioregional and urban design. “Riverkeeper’s soon-to-be-released Greenway Habitat Conservation Strategy prioritizes protection of coastal wetland habitat and this project serves as an important step toward creating critical habitat for heron, osprey and bald eagles along with many freshwater fish populations.”
If the story of the new Frog Island is distinctive, so too are remnants of the old Frog Island.
Thousands of motorists whiz over it along the Tonawanda shoreline every day. It’s now part of the foundation of the Niagara Section of the Thruway.
That’s because the island – and some of nearby Strawberry Island – were mined for gravel and hauled to the nearby shoreline in the 1950s at a time before there were any significant environmental laws in place to stop it.
Then in the mid-1980s, when Great Lakes water levels were at their highest, wind-driven waves, boat wakes, ice scouring and the river current constantly chipped away at Frog Island until it slipped beneath the surface of the water. Shallow shoals – about 1 to 3 feet deep – remained at that part of the river.
Construction to restore the island started in 2013 after a nearly six-year process of planning, design and permitting. It was one of many habitat improvement priorities put forth by the DEC during the New York Power Authority’s 50-year license renewal of the Niagara Power Project in 2007.
The authority estimates it has already provided benefits exceeding $274 million to the region in the form of direct payments, power supply and improvements to recreation and the environment through habitat improvement projects, including those at tiny Frog Island, since the relicensing eight years ago.
“This is a relatively small effort to just put some of that back,” said Stephen M. Schoenwiesner, a New York Power Authority manager. “Give the wildlife a little bit back of what was lost over time.”
It’s not a big area – less than 5 total acres – but a lot happens in that small space.
The four-tiered habitat being put back includes:
• Submerged aquatic vegetation areas, where native plants like root sedges, wild celery and other key aquatic plant species were planted. Experts expect other native plants, such as pondweeds, will colonize the area on their own. The area will prove an important food source for diving ducks, a species that flies south from the arctic region by the tens of thousands to spend the winter in the Buffalo Niagara region, and will provide a protective spawning and nursery habitat for young muskellunge.
• A transition zone for deep emergent wetland species like arrowhead, pickerelweed and bur-reed were planted.
• A second transition zone where shallow emergent wetland plants like sedge, rush and bulrush varieties occupy places in less than 6 inches of water.
• Upland areas, which consist of plantings like dogwood, willow, grasses and other species. It’s about 4,000 square feet of wet meadow habitat designed to help lure and promote pollinators. DePriest said air photos show the upland areas occupy roughly the same land area as the original Frog Island did.
Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper – the organization chartered with the environmental stewardship of the river corridor, enthusiastically endorsed Frog Island’s restoration.
“Nearly half of our historic coastal wetlands have been lost in the past century,” said Renata Kraft, Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper’s director of bioregional and urban design. “Riverkeeper’s soon-to-be-released Greenway Habitat Conservation Strategy prioritizes protection of coastal wetland habitat and this project serves as an important step toward creating critical habitat for heron, osprey and bald eagles along with many freshwater fish populations.”
Picking a natural design
Engineers focused on constructing the new Frog Island in a way to shield it from its predecessor’s fate.
Their impulse: Create a lasting habitat by building bigger and stronger, taller and wider, berms around the perimeter of the new island to stand up to waves, wakes and ice. An initial round of drawings called for building a “battleship-design” fortress, Schoenwiesner said.
For sturdiness, the plan seemed sound.
But, practically, it wouldn’t provide the sort of benefits to wildlife that ecologists hoped for because it would restrict access to the island for some wildlife.
They were sent back to the drawing board to come up with a more natural – and less “man-made” – design.
“The challenge was achieving the right balance,” Schoenwiesner said. “They had to really sharpen their pencils to come up with something that had enough strength to stand up to the forces that we’re going to see from time to time without going overboard.”
The result: a four-tiered habitat that gradually slopes from upland areas above the surface of the river down into the submerged vegetation zones.
Developers and biologists became satisfied that would provide the most natural approach while still preserving the integrity of the island.
Experts cite the mid-century gravel mining as the primary catalyst in the disappearance of the former island – something unlikely to recur thanks to environmental laws. So engineers re-focused efforts on mitigating some of the lesser factors – like the forces of the river, ice floes and boat wakes – to help shield the newly crafted river island.
They incorporated smaller berms, designed to disperse ice floes around the island, into the final plan. Also calculated were mathematical computations allowing for the wave “fetch” from 1¼-miles upstream converging on Frog Island during wind storms and high water levels. The plantings anchor the soil of the new island in place.
The first major test happened sooner than anyone expected.
In the fall of 2013, just after the first year of construction ended on the project, a “huge lake storm moved a lot of the water into the river,” according to Schoenwiesner. The river covered all of the berms and all of the upland parts of the newly created island.
“When it was all over, everything was in place just fine,” Schoenwiesner said. “It was a once-in-50-years storm.”
Heavy construction work wrapped up at Frog Island last year. With some plantings and other finishing touches, the project now progresses into the “monitoring phase.”
Over the next five years or so, scientists will gauge the growth and productivity of the ecosystem on Frog Island.
“We’re at the beginning stages of the foundation building,” DePriest said.
Engineers focused on constructing the new Frog Island in a way to shield it from its predecessor’s fate.
Their impulse: Create a lasting habitat by building bigger and stronger, taller and wider, berms around the perimeter of the new island to stand up to waves, wakes and ice. An initial round of drawings called for building a “battleship-design” fortress, Schoenwiesner said.
For sturdiness, the plan seemed sound.
But, practically, it wouldn’t provide the sort of benefits to wildlife that ecologists hoped for because it would restrict access to the island for some wildlife.
They were sent back to the drawing board to come up with a more natural – and less “man-made” – design.
“The challenge was achieving the right balance,” Schoenwiesner said. “They had to really sharpen their pencils to come up with something that had enough strength to stand up to the forces that we’re going to see from time to time without going overboard.”
The result: a four-tiered habitat that gradually slopes from upland areas above the surface of the river down into the submerged vegetation zones.
Developers and biologists became satisfied that would provide the most natural approach while still preserving the integrity of the island.
Experts cite the mid-century gravel mining as the primary catalyst in the disappearance of the former island – something unlikely to recur thanks to environmental laws. So engineers re-focused efforts on mitigating some of the lesser factors – like the forces of the river, ice floes and boat wakes – to help shield the newly crafted river island.
They incorporated smaller berms, designed to disperse ice floes around the island, into the final plan. Also calculated were mathematical computations allowing for the wave “fetch” from 1¼-miles upstream converging on Frog Island during wind storms and high water levels. The plantings anchor the soil of the new island in place.
The first major test happened sooner than anyone expected.
In the fall of 2013, just after the first year of construction ended on the project, a “huge lake storm moved a lot of the water into the river,” according to Schoenwiesner. The river covered all of the berms and all of the upland parts of the newly created island.
“When it was all over, everything was in place just fine,” Schoenwiesner said. “It was a once-in-50-years storm.”
Heavy construction work wrapped up at Frog Island last year. With some plantings and other finishing touches, the project now progresses into the “monitoring phase.”
Over the next five years or so, scientists will gauge the growth and productivity of the ecosystem on Frog Island.
“We’re at the beginning stages of the foundation building,” DePriest said.
Recuperating ecosystem
If fixing past wrongs along the Niagara River corridor is the aim of the ecosystem restoration, nature will decide the success of man’s efforts.
So far, signs look good.
Rookeries of great blue herons and egrets populate nearby Motor Island.
An American bald eagle family now nests on the south end of Strawberry Island.
The Caspian tern wasted no time colonizing upland areas of Frog Island.
As an added bonus, smallmouth bass started spawning around the new island in its first year, DePriest said.
“So far, there have been good signs of success,” DePriest said.
The Power Authority agreed to fund the Frog Island project with seven other habitat restoration projects under its relicensing agreement.
Several of the others are in the neighborhood, including just north of Strawberry Island, where a pair of yellow-gold excavators recently began restoring habitat. Habitat restoration efforts are also occurring in Strawberry Island’s horseshoe lagoon, hollowed-out years ago from past mining of gravel and sand.
Crews finished ecosystem restoration projects at Motor Island and Little Beaver Island.
On Motor Island – once a recreation island in the river that long-ago housed a hotel and yacht club and even a speakeasy – projects included habitat restoration and erosion control. Motor Island, now off-limits to the public, operates as a DEC-protected bird rookery.
Remnants of a nearby golf course were used to fill in some of the Little Beaver Island shoreline.
A marshland habitat there was also restored with native plantings.
Of the Frog Island restoration, DePriest emphasized its importance as “not a stand-alone project.”
“It integrates into the rest of the ecosystem – Strawberry Island, Motor Island, Beaver Island,” DePriest said. “This kind of contributes to the overall synergy of the area.”
email: tpignataro@buffnews.com
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HICKOK
If fixing past wrongs along the Niagara River corridor is the aim of the ecosystem restoration, nature will decide the success of man’s efforts.
So far, signs look good.
Rookeries of great blue herons and egrets populate nearby Motor Island.
An American bald eagle family now nests on the south end of Strawberry Island.
The Caspian tern wasted no time colonizing upland areas of Frog Island.
As an added bonus, smallmouth bass started spawning around the new island in its first year, DePriest said.
“So far, there have been good signs of success,” DePriest said.
The Power Authority agreed to fund the Frog Island project with seven other habitat restoration projects under its relicensing agreement.
Several of the others are in the neighborhood, including just north of Strawberry Island, where a pair of yellow-gold excavators recently began restoring habitat. Habitat restoration efforts are also occurring in Strawberry Island’s horseshoe lagoon, hollowed-out years ago from past mining of gravel and sand.
Crews finished ecosystem restoration projects at Motor Island and Little Beaver Island.
On Motor Island – once a recreation island in the river that long-ago housed a hotel and yacht club and even a speakeasy – projects included habitat restoration and erosion control. Motor Island, now off-limits to the public, operates as a DEC-protected bird rookery.
Remnants of a nearby golf course were used to fill in some of the Little Beaver Island shoreline.
A marshland habitat there was also restored with native plantings.
Of the Frog Island restoration, DePriest emphasized its importance as “not a stand-alone project.”
“It integrates into the rest of the ecosystem – Strawberry Island, Motor Island, Beaver Island,” DePriest said. “This kind of contributes to the overall synergy of the area.”
email: tpignataro@buffnews.com
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HICKOK
