Posted on June 5, 2018
By Kevin Jolly, Spectrum NEWS
Tony Mikulec, Don Grieco, and Norm Hornunz call themselves the Orchard Park Breakfast Guys. Friday, after breakfast they came to Unity Island to check out the work that’s underway on the northern edge of the island.
“This is going to be all marshland over here. I read in the paper they’re planting a lot of plants and yeah. But, that’s going to take a while doing a bucket at a time like that,” said Mikulec.
It’s all part of a US Army Corps of Engineers project to restore 10 acres of coastal wetland using sludge dredged from the Buffalo River.
“For the last ten years there’s been a lot of effort towards cleaning up the sediment in the Buffalo River, and now it’s to the point where the sediment that’s being deposited within the navigation channel in that river is clean. And we can start thinking creatively about how to beneficially use that material and this is one example of how we can do that,” said Hannes.
Andrew Hannes is ecologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He says the goal is to restore the natural habitat for plants and wildlife.
“Using this clean dredge material: silt, clays, and sand and placing it her within this pond we can build up the depths to the appropriate depth to establish a wetland plant community,” said Hannes.
Friday Congressman Brian Higgins joined local officials in thanking the Army Corps of Engineers for moving the project forward.
“One-point six million dollars is another iteration of the great success and the collaboration through the city of Buffalo, through all levels of government, the state, and also the Army Corps of Engineers,” said Higgins.
Engineers says once the sediment is in place the planting could begin as early as this year, but it could take years before this habitat makes a comeback.
“Only in probably the next two, three, to five years is this really gonna start resembling a real green wetland habitat,” said Hannes.
Source: Spectrum NEWS
