Monitoring and Facilitating Habitat Restoration Efforts in the Great Lakes

While human infrastructure, urbanization, and industrialization have advanced human societies, the natural environment has suffered due to constructed impediments and deteriorating architecture. In order to combat this degradation, habitat restoration programs across the US work to remove impairments and improve damaged waterways.

Barge electrofishing by state and federal employees prior to habitat restoration on Wiscoy Creek which is a tributary to the Genesee River. (Credit Thomas Hoffman)

Habitat Restoration Efforts in the Great Lakes

Tom Hoffman, aquatic habitat restoration biologist in the Lower Great Lakes basin, directs restoration efforts within tributaries to Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the St. Lawrence River with local partners.

Hoffman’s group receives funding through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) to oversee and lead habitat restoration efforts that usually focus on one or multiple priority species that are impacted by various types of infrastructure like culverts and dams. The leading goal is to develop partnerships in the region and improve aquatic habitat.

The office works with local partners and agencies who are looking to remove a dam or culvert (or replace a culvert) and steps in to help provide funding for more fish-friendly infrastructure as well as restoring the waterway.

“When you have a stream that’s not functioning properly, either eroding banks or it has been straightened or channelized, we go in and we fix them. In many situations, reasons for the streams not functioning properly are human caused. So we go in to try to restore them to natural function as much as we can,” explains Hoffman.

Fisheries staff collecting eDNA samples in suspected brook trout waters in western NY. (Credit: Kyle Glenn / Trout Unlimited)

Habitat restoration approaches vary and depend on the goals and objectives of partners and the needs of the priority species, such as freshwater mussels, brook trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, and American eel.

For example, in cases where erosion has led to a loss of vegetation in a habitat, root wads, rocks, or large pieces of wood can be installed to provide complexity for fish and other aquatic species’ habitats.

Most of the projects Hoffman’s team takes on involve the removal of problematic culverts that are either deteriorating or too small for the waterway they output into. Beyond covering the removal and a possible upgrade cost, the office also oversees restoration efforts.

Hoffman elaborates, “What we will sometimes do is bring additional money to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to replace this anyways. Let’s add in some stream habitat restoration–be it cover, an undercut bank, some boulders or wood structure installation for example.”

“So what we’ll try to do is two-fold, definitely make the issue better–being an undersized culvert–but also, try to incorporate some fish habitat in the solution,” adds Hoffman.

Installation of large wood fish habitat into Oatka Creek which is a tributary to the Genesee River. Photo Credit Thomas Hoffman

Monitoring Stream Restoration Efforts

Because Hoffman oversees such a large area, the use of internal logging instruments and GPS/GIS equipment simplifies data collection and site viewing.

Internal loggers like the Solinst Barologger 5 Barometric Pressure Logger, WLTS vented water level & temperature sensor, and Onset HOBO TidbiT temperature logger allow for sensing equipment to be deployed and retrieved at varying intervals, depending on the needs of their partners.

Data from the loggers can be integrated with site maps created using GPS/GIS equipment and help identify key habitat locations for species. For example, brook trout are an exclusively cold water species, and in the summer, they will stay in pockets of the water body that stay relatively cool.

“Identification of these cold water patches is very, very important in preserving brook trout populations,” states Hoffman.

In addition to the loggers and GPS/GIS units, eDNA sampling and testing have also become an essential piece of Hoffman’s work as the ability to easily identify the presence of a priority species saves some time in the field walking miles of river habitat.

Before (left) and after (right) a barrier removal on Rice Creek, which is a tributary to Lake Ontario. (Credit: Gian Dodici)

Conclusion

Standard surveys are still conducted following the restoration, during which the team can see the results of their hard work.

“You have a stream that’s degraded, you go in and you fix it, and if you’ve done it right, it should be there longer than I am here. When you fix a culvert, you can go back and see that it’s fixed, and you can prove that aquatic organisms are passing through it.” explains Hoffman.

He continues, “It’s very rewarding to see what you’re doing–it’s something very tangible. You can go to a restoration site, you can observe it. You know that it’s going to be there for a while.”

Fisheries Technicians taking genetic samples of brook trout for a regional characterization study. (Credit: Thomas Hoffman)