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| Bird Island Pier figures into the project to increase emerald shiners population |
By Matt Szucs
A new initiative spearheaded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Army Corps of Engineers will help the Niagara River and Lake Erie sustain their ecosystems by providing one of its smallest fishes, the Emerald Shiner, a fighting chance against the current and help them make their way upstream.
The project plans to build metal attachments known as baffles for 700 feet along Freedom Park’s seawall, passing under the Peace Bridge and continuing on towards Bird Island Pier.
The construction opportunity was granted to BIDCo Marine Group by the Army Corp of Engineers for $11.8 million. BIDCo is an aquatic-based local construction company, that will design and construct the baffles.
Mark C. Judd, the president and founder of BIDCo, said work will being in the spring and continue to a 2026 completion.
Over the years the seawall along Freedom Park has been hardened, a term referring to the fact that over the years any rocks, trees or plants have disappeared resulting in nothing in the way to slow down the current as it flows.
The emerald shiners come downstream from Lake Erie in the spring to lay their eggs. At the end of summer the newly born shiners ideally swim back upstream from the Niagara River to Lake Erie, but due to the hardening of the seawall the current has become too strong for most to make it. The dwindling number of shiners that can make it will have a severe impact on the local ecosystems if left alone.
The baffles, which will be trapezoid shaped metal structures filled with concrete, will counteract the hardened seawall and help slow down the flow allowing for the majority of the emerald shiner population to return upstream and continue their cycle.
Ten prototype baffles designed by University at Buffalo researchers were put into place along the seawall in 2022. This initiative was funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative for $1.6 million the Army Corps of Engineers found that these designs successfully slowed the current of the Niagara River by 0.4 meters per second, an amount that on a large scale would slow the stream enough for the emerald shiners to pass through.
Through Buffalo State University the Great Lakes Center has studied the emerald shiners with funding from the US Army Corps of Engineers. It conducted the first major study into emerald shiners to better understand just how important the tiny fish is to the ecosystem of the local lakes.
The project was led by Dr. Alicia Pérez-Fuentetaja and lasted from 2013-2018. Much of the initial research into the migration cycles of emerald shiners involved figuring out just how important these fish are for the Niagara River.
Professor Randal Snyder, co-principal investigator, called the shiners are a “keystone” species, a building block at the bottom of the food chain that many forms of local wildlife rely on from larger fish to birds.
The Great Lakes Center concluded that “A collapse in this species would have negative repercussions to their predators, sport fish and birds that depend on this resource. The impact would be felt by the public as well: sport fishermen and bird-watchers, nature lovers and river users.”
The Niagara River is currently listed as an EPA Area of Concern.
