2026 Great Lakes Coastal Symposium

This field trip will take participants to South Bass Island, also known as Put-In-Bay, a year-round community of approximately 800 residents located three miles offshore from mainland Ohio. After the 20-minute ferry across Lake Erie, participants will visit The Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Aquatic Visitor Center. The visits will include facility tours and presentations about island projects and studies, Lake Erie research, environmental education, and more.

The site tours will showcase two very different project sites where the City of Lorain used ecological solutions to address environmental challenges stemming from urbanization and heavy industry.  The Martin’s Run Ecological Restoration Project will highlight how Lorain resolved localized flooding by converting low-yield agricultural land into a high-quality stream and wetland complex that provides nearly 20 acres of publicly accessible space. The Reclamation Site Restoration Project marks a major milestone—the final Management Action in more than a decade of coordinated work to remediate legacy environmental impacts along the Black River and its riparian corridor stemming from historic steelmaking operations. Attendees will gain insight into how the City of Lorain implemented both traditional and non-conventional solutions across a large landscape that have contributed to the recovery of the Black River watershed and to the eventual delisting of the Black River as an Area of Concern.  

The site tours will showcase how water quality and wetland habitat projects work together to improve both aspects of the environment.  The Marinewood project demonstrates a former golf course that has been converted into a conservation area with several restored wetlands.  The Libben project enhanced a severely degraded wetland with infrastructure repair and now incorporates ag drainage into the wetland.  The Little Portage Area involves tiling a 400 acre agricultural field which previously was pumped into the Little Portage River, but is now directed into a state wildlife area.  The Tice wetland is one of the largest private wetland restorations along the Lake Erie coast and incorporates H2Ohio and Lake Erie CREP funding to restore a wetland.

Ohio is investing significantly in improving water quality, especially in the Western Lake Erie Basin, through the H2Ohio Initiative. Black Swamp Conservancy has partnered with Ohio Department of Natural Resources to restore wetlands and streams across the upper reaches of the basin using this initiative. The Nature Conservancy has leveraged H2Ohio funds with grants from GLRI, NOAA and private donors to implement large-scale coastal wetland restoration in the Sandusky Bay. We’ll visit two H2Ohio-funded restoration sites: one a converted ag field in the “headwaters” of the Sandusky River, and the other a set of innovative nature-based barrier wetland projects on the coast of Sandusky Bay. Attendees will see two different restoration styles first-hand, discuss engineering & design, water quality monitoring, and partnerships. *The topography is generally flat, but participants will navigate approximately 3.25 miles total on uneven ground on rough-mown trails and possible mud.