Ecological Restoration

Ship Canal Commons is a waterfront park envisioned by the City of Buffalo, County of Erie, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, and Buffalo Urban Development Corporation as an ecological restoration and environmental remediation project. Its goal was to create an urban waterfront green space that would support fish, plants, and wildlife in a natural setting while encouraging passive recreation. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the engineering firm Arcadis created an aquatic habitat plan that included a canal berm supporting the northern and eastern canal walls while creating shallow-water fish habitat and tiered benches for aquatic plant species. Underwater fish habitat structures, including submersed willow trees, were installed, and benthic substrate materials were placed on the canal floor to enhance the growth of aquatic micro-organisms and stabilize the ecosystem. A key remediation step placed geotextile fabric over canal-floor sediment by sewing together a piece two thousand feet long by two hundred feet wide and sinking it to the bottom of the canal, then depositing one foot of clean stone across the entire bottom. In the northeastern corner, where the canal wall had deteriorated to the wood cribbing, an embayment area or wetland was created to replicate the ecological condition that existed throughout the Union Ship Canal area before the industrial era. Twenty-six different native aquatic plant species, including Pickerel Weed, Yellow Pond Lily, Swamp Loosestrife, Arrowhead, and Sago Pondweed, were placed in the canal to support fish and other aquatic organisms. Fish frequenting the canal include smallmouth bass and perch. Although the Union Ship Canal is not a natural body of water, its direct link to Lake Erie has made it an important location for aquatic habitat, and these restoration components have advanced its transformation toward a more natural waterway since commercial activity ended there in the late 1980s.

Buffalo, New York · United States