Mentor Marsh Restoration Dollars Funder Dollar Amount Use

Land Acquisition$32,000Ohio NatureWorks

Land Stewardship$19,000USDA NRCS

Salinity and water quality monitoring$5,000 in kindLake Soil and Water

Conservation District

Treatment of 365 acres of Phragmites

Follow up treatment of 400-acre Eastern Basin

$126,000

$116,000Sustain Our Great Lakes

Land Acquisition, 65 acres$323,000 Clean Ohio Conservation

Fund

Bio-fuel research$15,000 Ohio Lake Erie Commission

Land Stewardship$65,000Charles Pack Foundation

Treatment of 522 Acres of Phragmites$224,000Great Lakes Restoration

Initiative

Land Stewardship$50,000+ cash & in kind

Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Land Stewardship$11,500 Lake Erie Cooperative Weed Management Area

Total Stewardship Dollars $986,500

Ohio Department of Natural Resources: Divisions of Natural

Areas and State ParksThe Nature ConservancyDavey Resource Group

City of Mentor

Mentor City SchoolsCity of Mentor Fire Department

Lake County CommissionersDepartment of Utilities

Ohio Lake Erie Commission

Linda SekuraThe many private landowners that

have donated or allowed restoration activities on their property

Supporting Restoration Partners

last updated May 17, 2017

Restoration Partners

Mentor Marsh Restoration EffortsThe Mentor Marsh is a coastal and estuarine marsh, and is considered to be the largest natural and undiked marsh along the Lake Erie shoreline. It is hydraulically connected to Lake Erie and is directly influenced by lake levels; fish pass into the Marsh directly from the Lake. It is a designated National Natural Landmark (1966) for being one of the most species-rich sites on the Great Lakes shoreline, Ohio’s first State Nature Preserve (1971) and is a National Audubon Society Important Birding Area. The Marsh is a former 1.5 mile-long meander of the Grand River containing approximately 765 acres of peat and muck soil wetland along the Lake Erie lake-plain.

Due to the invasion of Phragmites australis, common reed grass, over the past 30 years there have been 12 major marsh fires. The fires have cost the City of Mentor, neighboring communities and landowners 1.58 million dollars (adjusted to 2013 inflation) to extinguish the blazes and fix damaged property.

After the 2003 fire, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History began clearing the Phragmites away from the newly replaced Wake Robin Boardwalk, in hopes of preventing future fire damage. Museum staff was encouraged by the diversity of native plants that sprouted from the seedbank. This “test plot” is the inspiration for the current 765-acre restoration effort, which includes aerial and ground level herbicide treatment, followed by either removal of the biomass for alternative fuel research, or mashing of the Phragmites with a Marshmaster equipped with a specialized roller and planting of native swamp forest trees and shrubs and marsh wetland plants. New species of fish such as Northern Pike and Yellow Perch have been found in the Marsh since the restoration began. Rare marsh birds such as American and Least Bittern, Virginia Rails and Sora rails are nesting in the habitat cleared of Phragmites.