Michigan's historic Ford House is replacing concrete shoreline with natural habitat

Excavator installing a fish lunker on Ford Cove. Credit: Ford House A major environmental restoration project is removing decades of artificial concrete shoreline defences along Michigan’s Lake St. Clair and replacing them with natural wetlands, living shorelines and fish habitat.The $7 million project at the historic Edsel and Eleanor Ford Estate is transforming more than a mile of hardened waterfront into a working ecosystem. Funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, the project will restore 17.5 acres of coastal marsh, nearshore waters and forested wetland.According to a report from NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Habitat Conservation, about 99.9 percent of Michigan’s Lake St. Clair coastline has been hardened with concrete slabs, seawalls and rock barriers. While these structures help protect the shore from erosion, they remove the shallow coastal areas that native aquatic species need.Removing concrete barriers to bring back native speciesArtificial seawalls create steep drop-offs and strong wave reflections. This removes the shallow areas where fish spawn and young animals find shelter.“The hardened shoreline essentially eliminates that nearsho...