Ford House's new Lake St. Clair shoreline reopens to the public
(FOX 2) - After years of restoration work along Lake St. Clair, an icon of Michigan history is unveiling nearly a mile of newly-built shoreline.
The Ford House's milestone along the lower Lake St. Clair in Grosse Pointe Park returned access to the public on July 7, showing off a universal accessible path, as well as newly built fish habitat within Ford Cove.
The project was aided with several million dollars in federal grant money and expertise in recreating nature's best practices for sustaining a healthy aquatic population as well as building a space that can be utilized by visitors of all kinds.
Ford House Shoreline Restoration
The Ford House is the former residence of Eleanor and Edsel Ford, which was built in 1928 before becoming a national historic landmark.
It now serves as a lakeside estate that's open to the public, offering access year-round to events, sweeping gardens, dining, and shopping spaces.
It's also located along a water body whose shoreline is almost entirely developed and armored along the U.S. side. Approximately 99% of Lake St. Clair's shoreline is hardened with concrete and rock, which protects the area from Great Lakes wave action, but deprives fish species of valuable habitat.
Over the past several years, the Ford House has deployed a major restoration project to revive the space around Bird Island and the Ford Cove.
Michigan's artificial shorelines are making its lakes sick. Can they be healed?
Michigan's lakes have been severed from the landscape as the state's shorelines are increasingly developed. The consequences stretch beyond the beach.
Dig deeper:
With the help of $7 million in federal money from NOAA's Habitat Conservation Community-based Restoration program, the Ford House rebuilt the area.
It used felled trees and other natural materials to mimic the kinds of environments where fish species lay their eggs to spawn. Across the Great Lakes region, the removal of these natural materials and development of shorelines has reduced habitat for fish spawning and depleted the space where their young can grow.
In addition to the new stretch of natural land, another 50,000 native perennial plants and hundreds of trees and shrubs were also added. More are expected throughout the year.
What they're saying:
"Restoring it is part of our work to keep the estate accessible and educational, to help put focus on the importance of clean water and habitat, and to make Ford House a leader in stewarding land for the future. It opens the water's edge to the public for the first time, and what we celebrate today belongs to the whole region, not just to Ford House."
The Source: The Ford House was cited for this story.