Harbor gets $400M cleanup
Dredging project aimed to bring more recreation and wildlife to area ripe for business development
Milwaukee’s harbor and estuary is getting a $400 million cleanup — a years-long effort that will bring additional recreation and development to an area that is already seeing increased private investment. Most of the work, financed mainly by federal taxpayers, involves removing contaminated sediments from the harbor and portions of three connecting rivers. Other projects include such items as wetlands restoration and fish passages. Those will draw more wildlife, as well as outdoors enthusiasts.
Meanwhile, removing the polluted sediments will create a much cleaner estuary. That will help fuel the ongoing momentum for new housing, offices and other developments in Milwaukee’s Harbor District.
“I would say a lot of additional projects are going to come out of the ground,” said David Misky, Milwaukee Redevelopment Authority assistant executive director.
The cleanup also will play a broader role in helping Milwaukee attract new businesses, said Adam TindallSchlicht, director of the city-owned Port of Milwaukee.
“The bottom line is when this effort is completed Milwaukee will be seen as a nationwide community leader in water development and water leadership,” he said.
“As the city invests into cleaning up the river, people tend to draw closer to its beauty therefore increasing property values and the desire to live near it.”
A ‘natural progression’
The cleanup comes as other projects have improved local waterways.
“It’s a natural progression,” said Bob Monnat, a senior partner at Mandel Group Inc.
That development firm’s projects include Harbor Yards, which will feature a hotel, offices and apartments between the Milwaukee River and South Water Street, north of East Florida Street.
The harbor cleanup was announced in January 2020 by federal, state and local officials.
Its initial $29 million design stage is proceeding, with the Milwaukee Common Council on Jan. 19 approving the city’s $400,000 portion to help fund it.
The overall price tag could eventually exceed $400 million — depending on how many projects obtain funding from the federal government and other sources.
Around $270 million is expected to come through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District is providing another $100 million.
Other funding sources include the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Milwaukee County and the city.
Also, Alter Recycling, Mercury Marine and We Energies are involved because those businesses, or their corporate predecessors, were among the companies polluting the estuary.
The money will be spent in the harbor, and in portions of the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers.
The effort includes such projects as the upcoming restoration of the Grand Trunk wetland at the end of South Marina Drive, the planned conversion of the Menomonee River’s Burnham Canal into a wetland, the 2018 removal of the Milwaukee River’s Estabrook Park dam, and the planned redesign of Glendale’s Kletzsch Park dam.
Storage facility is a key
But the cleanup’s centerpiece will be the $360 million dredging and piping of contaminated underwater harbor sediment to a new storage facility along Jones Island.
Known as the dredged materials management facility, it will be used to store 1.9 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment and other dredging material. said Kevin Shafer, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District executive director.
The facility will be created by building underwater walls just north of another materials area, created on former lakebed, that includes the Lake Express ferry port, 2330 S. Lincoln Memorial
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The new 42-acre enclosed area will be filled mostly with contaminated mud. Dirty water will be treated and pumped out to make room for more mud.
Beyond the cleanup, the facility also will provide space for commercial dredging fill. The mud will be dried for several years to eventually form solid ground.
That site someday could be used for port operations, such as off-loading freighters, or as a wildlife preserve, said Lilith Fowler, executive director of Harbor District Inc., a nonprofit group that leads harbor area projects.
Fowler said the city, sewerage district and other public agencies should seek public input to help determine that eventual future use.
About half the facility’s $95 million price tag will be covered by a low-interest EPA loan, Shafer said. The sewerage district will cover the rest of that cost.
The district was recently invited by the federal agency to apply for the loan — which Shafer said is tantamount to final approval. A similar EPA loan is financing the City of Waukesha’s lake water pipeline construction project.
“The feds have already pretty much told us they’re committed to getting the work done,” Shafer said.
The sewerage district plans to begin construction on the materials facility in late 2021 or early 2022, with that work completed in about two years. The dredging, which will take one to two years, can begin once the facility is done.
The underwater sediments are polluted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants from Milwaukee tanneries, machine shops and other industries dating to the 19th century.
‘Swimmable, fishable, drinkable waterways’
As with a similar project recently completed on Wisconsin’s Fox River, the idea is to make the water cleaner for wildlife, as well as people.
“We want to create swimmable, fishable and drinkable waterways,” said Jennifer Bolger Breceda, executive director of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, a nonprofit group that advocates for cleaner waterways.
The cleanup also helps encourage more development in the harbor area, Misky said.
“A lot of development has happened,” he said, “but there’s a lot more potential for more economic development to occur.”
The waterfront offices, apartments and other new uses coming to the harbor area can operate without conflicting with Milwaukee’s working port, Tindall-Schlicht said.
The port just reported a 5.2% increase in shipments during 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on global commerce.
Meanwhile, a new lease guarantees the port will be a turnaround location for the Pearl Mist cruise ship from 2021 through 2030 — with an option for the cruise line to extend that service to 2040.
“Milwaukee on the water is where people want to live, work and play,” Tindall-Schlicht said.
Said Breceda, “There’s a lot of life in Milwaukee right now, especially along the waterways.”
Helps improve property values
Developers pursuing waterfront projects said the cleanup plan wasn’t an overt factor in their decisions to invest in the harbor area.
But they also said the effort helps encourage more recreational uses of the harbor and its connecting rivers — which makes their properties more marketable.
“As the city invests into cleaning up the river, people tend to draw closer to its beauty therefore increasing property values and the desire to live near it,” said Ryan Bedford, who operates Bedford Development LLC.
Bedford hopes to complete financing in the coming months on his planned Admiral’s Wharf apartments and office project, at 234 S. Water St.
Other waterfront projects include Komatsu Mining Corp.’s future corporate campus under construction overlooking the harbor at the end of East Greenfield Avenue, and River 1, a mix of offices and apartments that Michels Corp. is building along the Kinnickinnic River at 218 W. Becher St.
“A cleaner estuary and environment is good for all of Milwaukee, and certainly good for a project that embraces the Kinnickinnic River likes ours does,” said River 1 project spokesman Thad Nation.
Such projects will help the Harbor District attract national attention, said Stewart Wangard, chair and chief executive officer of Wangard Partners Inc.
The harbor cleanup will reinforce that attention, said Wangard, whose firm plans to develop a mix of uses along the Kinnickinnic River at 19581970 S. 1st St.
The cleanup also will complement the planned expansion of the RiverWalk system along the Kinnickinnic and Menomonee rivers as various commercial developments are built.
Combined with the other projects, the cleanup should bring long-lasting positive effects for Milwaukee’s waterways, said Fowler.
“This is a real opportunity for us to turn these rivers around,” she said.