Restoration project at the Port of Cleveland

The Cleveland-Cuyahoga Port Authority and The Nature Conservancy are working together to restore native plants at Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve. A crew from The Nature Conservancy began work on July 11 with hand tools and herbicide, aiming to eradicate patches of aggressive, non-native plants that crowd out native vegetation and make the unusual shoreline habitat represented at the preserve less hospitable to many birds and other animals.

The Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve originally was created as a confined disposal facility to hold sediment dredged from the Cuyahoga riverbed to keep the shipping channel open. When sediment placement ended in 1999, the soil settled and an amazing array of flora and fauna gradually claimed the site. The Port opened the 88-acre preserve east of downtown in 2012 and the park welcome tens of thousands of visitors each year. Today, one can find multiple habitats and animals as diverse as coyotes, minks, foxes, and deer on site. Audubon Ohio has designated it an Important Bird Area as 280 species of birds have been spotted there.