Quality of life expectations can improve through initiatives such as protecting the environment for the recreational and sport fishing habitat along the Niagara River. The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA), the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund (GLSF) and The Niagara Parks Commission (NPC) all partnered to address the challenge.
Ussher’s Creek Island is a man-made island in the mouth of Ussher’s Creek where it empties into the Niagara River. The island and creek shorelines had been eroding away causing old retaining walls, silt, trees and soil to fall into the river, disrupting the natural habitat of the fish. The rare Green Arrow Arum, an aquatic plant, and the disappearing Big Shellbark Hickory (Carya laciniosa) were falling prey to the erosion.
The NPCA devised the technical plan using fascine plantings to inwardly stabilize the top of bank and live staking among carefully placed boulders along the graded shoreline to halt erosion along the water’s edge. Fascine planting is the use of three-plus meters (ten feet) long branches freshly cut and wrapped together in bundles and planted in trenches running parallel to the shoreline. Live staking uses cuttings one-plus meters (4 to 5 feet) long and six centimeters (2-3 inches) in diameter placed in holes drilled vertically in the soil. Both fascines and live stakes are cuttings, without roots, from various willow species; they will root quickly once placed in the soil.
The GLSF, through the Niagara River Riparian (shoreline) Habitat Management Plan and Policy project, was able to provide funding. NPC, owner of the land adjacent to Ussher’s Creek and island, was responsible for implementation and ongoing perpetual care.
Game fish such as Northern Pike can now migrate along Ussher’s Creek for spawning. Smallmouth Bass and Perch can seek cover among the Green Arrow Arum and other aquatic plants in the shade of the overhanging trees and shrubs growing along the newly created shoreline. The water under the trees remains cooler for healthy fish species, bullfrogs, dragonflies and snails. The aquatic vegetation purifies, through filtration, water flowing out of Ussher’s Creek into the Niagara River. The plants growing along the bioengineered shoreline, through their ever-moving roots, adapt as the landscape changes through varying water levels and new native plants seeding themselves. Previously, the old solid retaining wall, unable to change, had collapsed into the river, exposing the bare unprotected soil to erosion.
The existing trees and shrubs, together with other introduced native wildflowers and plants, provide food, shelter and nesting areas for birds, butterflies and other insects which become a food source for the fish, thereby completing a food cycle.
Everyone is a winner through small partnered projects, like Ussher’s Creek Island Bioengineering. Water quality improves, fish and bird habitat increases, air quality improves through leaf photosynthesis, erosion is reduced and quality of life experiences for many people are greatly expanded.