City to restore one of harbor’s last wetlands
A $3 million federal grant will pay for restoring one of the last remaining wetlands in Milwaukee’s harbor estuary and provide spawning habitat for northern pike as well as public access to the Kinnickinnic River for recreation, Mayor Tom Barrett said Tuesday.
About 7.5 acres of wetlands along S. Marina Drive in Bay View are at the southern end of the Harbor District redevelopment area extending from E. Greenfield Ave. south along the harbor to E. Bay St. The wetlands drain into a navigation channel along the east bank of the river.
“Milwaukee’s landscape has changed significantly over the past 200 years, and the wetland marshes that dominated the center of the city have all but vanished,” Barrett said Tuesday in announcing the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“This restoration work will re-establish a small portion of that wetland,” he said. “It will add wildlife habitat, including northern pike spawning areas.” Frogs, snakes and birds also would find suitable homes on the property.
The Harbor District land use plan recommends building a canoe and kayak launch in the navigation channel downstream of the wetlands. A city consultant has recommended development of trails and boardwalks on the perimeter of the wetlands.
One goal of the project is “for people to reconnect to the water,” Barrett said.
Restoration plans will be completed later this year and work is scheduled in 2019, Barrett said. Preliminary designs will be discussed at a May 3 public meeting to be held in Bay View.
The property was formerly owned by the Grand Trunk Milwaukee Car Ferry Co. and had been partially filled and degraded by more than a century of industrial and railroad activity along the downstream end of the river where it empties into the harbor, officials said.
From 1905 to 1978, Grand Trunk Railway loaded railroad cars onto ferries for transport east across Lake Michigan between Milwaukee and Muskegon, Mich. The company also unloaded railroad cars from westbound ferries arriving here.
Contaminated soil and fill materials will be removed before native wetland vegetation is planted as part of the restoration, said Benji Timm, project manager with the Department of City Development.
The federal grant will cover costs of soil cleanup and wetland plant restoration, Timm said.
The city is seeking additional funding sources to pay for proposed recreational amenities, such as the canoe launch and trails.
The wetlands are within a 28-acre parcel north of E. Bay St. acquired by the city in the 1980s.