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.