(upbeat music) (speech bubbles popping) - Hello, and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

Maintaining and restoring existing wetlands are important steps in protecting local watersheds.

We're gonna be talking with a couple of members of the Nature Conservancy in Ohio about specifically the Sandhill Crane Wetlands but basically wetlands in general and why they are so important to our area.

So joining us today are Ben Bomlitz from Nature Conservancy in Ohio and Dr. Peter Blank, Nature Conservancy here in Ohio.

Dr. Blank, talk about why wetlands are so important and why it's important that we continue to expand and develop and maintain the ones we have.

- Sure, and thank you for having us.

Wetlands are really the nurseries for so much life.

There are amphibians and birds and so, and plants, and so much life is growing in those wetlands.

In addition, we care about wetlands because it really improves our water quality.

They filter nutrients and sediments as they come off of our lands, like our agricultural lands, and they filter those before it gets into our streams and then later running off into Lake Erie.

So from the biodiversity to the water quality, wetlands are just so important all across Ohio and across the globe.

- Yeah, and when we look at what, of course, if you think about where we are, we're in Wood County, Northwest Ohio, Great Black Swamp.

I mean, in essence, it wasn't, it basically was one big wetland back before we, before it became, people moved here, settled it, drained it, that sort of thing.

So it's probably a little bit of a constant battle to make sure that we still have enough wetlands to do exactly what you said, which is help protect our watersheds and our waterways.

Ben, you're on the ground a lot on this.

So talk a little about, you know, obviously one of the things we like to talk about is how we reconstruct a wetland, because it's not simply, "Oh, we just let it flood."

Obviously it's a lot more complex than that.

- Right, yeah, it depends on the site.

It depends on, you know, how large the site is.

Specifically at Sandhill Crane Wetlands, it's particularly large.

It's one of the larger, if not the largest, contiguous wetland restoration sites of this nature I think in Ohio, in the state at least.

And boy, from beginning to end, we had to do ground-penetrating radar.

It used to be a farm field, which was particularly prone to flooding.

So there was tile, drainage tile that we had to cut.

We had to look where the water pooled.

Then we also had to construct with earth-moving machinery, large construction equipment, pile up some, make some scrapes, pile up the sand to make the standing water pools and then also the natural dunes that are found in the Oak Openings region of Ohio.

Then you have to seed it with the plants that are natively found here, and that's no small feat, either.

So from start to finish, there's years of work and whatnot, and then you let the water flood and see if it, see what happens.

[Steve] See if it works.

Yeah, yeah, now you were talking about how large this one, what size are we talking, how many acres, square feet, square miles, whatever, yeah.

[Ben] Yeah, we measure this in acres, and it's just shy of 300, really.

288 I believe is the final total.

And it is all one contiguous piece of land that is also butted up against a contiguous and adjacent to our properties as well as some Metropark Toledo properties and other- - Yeah, and when we look at this, too, how do you look at a piece of land, for instance, Dr. Blank, and say, "Hey, this should be restored to a wetland.

This is the perfect location," or "No, this isn't a good location to try this."

How do you, what are some of the criteria for that?

[Peter] Right, it's a great question.

We actually have an entire team in The Nature Conservancy in Ohio called the Natural Infrastructure Team, and they look for places around the state to do wetland restoration projects.

This one was particularly valuable because of the size that Ben was mentioning, but also that it was adjacent to our preexisting Kitty Todd Nature Preserve.

So before this property was acquired, we were about 1,100 acres for the nature preserve, and now we're just over 1,400 acres.

So being able to add a significant acreage to the preserve was great, and just that contiguous nature, this big, wide expanse that we can improve water quality and wildlife benefits in a big area was just extremely valuable.

But as I mentioned, we have a team looking around the state for ways to improve water quality and improve habitat in wetlands, and they are doing a lot of work around Lake Erie and along the Lake Erie coast.

But they're also working throughout the state, looking for ways that they can improve wetland habitat.

And when they do that, sometimes, most of the time we don't actually acquire the property ourselves.

We help other partners, the owners of those properties, restore and enhance those wetlands on the site.

So sometimes it might mean we help get a grant to improve that, and then the partners will take it from there.

But there's a lot of people involved in an effort like this.

- Well, and you make a good point, too, because we're obviously, we focus on Lake Erie, the Maumee River watershed, that sort of thing.

But this is important across the state because waterways and things like that suffer some of the same issues that we're dealing with here.

So we're sort of Lake Erie-centric on it, but the reality is all over the state, there are things that need to be addressed like this.

[Ben] Indeed, and this is more of an inland wetland, so it's more called a wet prairie.

So it has standing water sometimes, and sometimes that water dries up, and it is like a tall grass prairie.

And that's just because of the topography of Northwest Ohio.

But another, I wanted to add another site location.

The way we choose sites, this particular Sandhill Crane Wetland area is, drains into what is Wiregrass Ditch, one of the main, main drainage ditches in Lucas County in that western portion that feeds directly into, I believe, the Ottawa River, which then drains right into- [Steve] Maumee Bay, yeah.

- Maumee Bay, yeah, exactly.

So if we can help clean or restore some of the areas adjacent to these large drainage waterways as well, that helps clean that water going right into the tributaries and so on.

- Yeah, and because you're filtered, the sooner you can filter it, the better, the less- [Ben] That's right.

- Yeah, the better and the more you can do.

Now this location, and you've talked about it in general, I mean, if people wanted to see this, where specifically are we talking about?

What roads, what area specifically?

[Peter] Well, we're just east of the downtown Swanton area and just west of Toledo.

We're not far from the Michigan border.

And yes, we are open, we encourage and hope people will come out and visit the, it's called the Kitty Todd Nature Preserve.

It's open sunrise to sunset seven days a week.

We have about two to three miles of trails that are open to the public at all times.

On the Sandhill Crane Wetlands, we just installed a new viewing area.

There's benches, there's interpretive signs, and a beautiful view of the entire 280-some acres out there.

So we do and we hope people will come visit us.

[Ben] Yeah, the crossroads of that would be Angola and Raab Road.

[Steve] Oh, okay, sure.

- R-A-A-B, and Angola Road is the intersection of the southwesternmost corner of Sandhill Crane Wetlands.

But that's in, technically in Swanton, Ohio.

[Steve] Yeah, yeah, and I guess in thinking about it, too, this would, and you talked about the fact that sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's dry.

So it's a little bit like Irwin Prairie, which is out in that same- [Ben] That's right.

- General direction, not exactly there, but out that way.

Whereas sometimes, depending on the season, you may be walking on a boardwalk with water around you, or it may just be dry, and you've got all the plant life there.

[Peter] I'm so- [Steve] Yeah, go ahead.

[Peter] I'm so glad that you've mentioned Irwin Prairie because this, our preserve is on what's known as the Irwin Prairie Complex and- [Steve] Ah, okay.

[Peter] It's a historic ecological and geological zone that we're trying to restore.

This is part of what's known as the Oak Openings region.

The Oak Openings stretches from south of Toledo to north of Ann Arbor and north of Detroit.

So it's about 1,300 square miles, and we've identified with our partners certain areas that we call Priority Conservation Areas throughout the Oak Openings region.

And the Irwin Prairie Complex is one place that we're doing a lot of restoration on, and that's another reason why maintaining this habitat, the Sandhill Crane Wetlands and improving habitat along the Kitty Todd Nature Preserve is so important.

- Okay, well, when we come back, we can talk more about that because I think it's interesting to see, and obviously we have a lot of images of the development of Sandhill Crane Wetlands, but you talk about restoring the wildlife and that sort of thing.

I guess it's, we'll talk about the fact that sort of like if you build it, they will come sort of kind of thing, so yeah.

[Ben] Exactly.

[Peter] Good analogy.

- Yeah, yeah, back in just a moment with representatives from The Nature Conservancy Ohio.

We're talking about wetlands and specifically Sandhill Crane Wetland.

Back in just a moment on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal."

Our guests are Dr. Peter Blank and Ben Bomlitz from Nature Conservancy in Ohio.

We've been talking specifically about Sandhill Crane Wetland, but wetlands in general.

And one of the things we, you're celebrating a one-year anniversary of the opening of Sandhill Crane.

And we talked about the fact, too, that, okay, you build this.

You want wildlife to come back.

You replant native plants there to attract it.

So how long does it take, or how does that generally go when you say, "Okay, the wetland's open for business.

Birds, nature, everybody show up."

How does that usually evolve?

I mean, nature finds a way to make it work, I'm guessing.

[Ben] It does, and you'd be surprised how quickly it happens.

And in many cases it's happening before we do the restoration.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- We see some plants poking up through the corn, or we see certain waterfowl or certain birds that are indicative of more of a grassland or a wetland, and you see the water pooling in the field.

Okay, this probably, quote unquote, wants to be a wetland.

And when you then just build literally the structure, as you said before, if they build it, you know, if you build it, they will come.

It is an apt analogy because if you make the structure and put the native plants, really, the basis of there, then all the insects that eat those plants will show up.

All of the birds then and amphibians that eat those and so on, and then it just stacks on.

[Steve] Yeah, the food chain, yeah.

- And really, we planted it, as soon as we made the scrapes, we started seeing different waterfowl coming there.

As soon as we really built out the ponds, we started seeing different animals show up.

We seeded it, the very next season of germination, all of a sudden, boom, there it was.

[Steve] Wow.

- It looked like a wetland.

And then the second season of, this is the second season this year of it being germinated, of the seeds being germinated, it's really exploded in the bird aspect, really.

- Yeah, yeah, well, it's interesting because that means that actually the animals were sort of saying, "Yeah, you should do this," because they were indicating this is where we think it's a, you know, nature being voluntary, like that selects it.

[Ben] Yeah.

Absolutely.

- Yeah, now, when you dig into these things, because obviously, and you talked about ground-penetrating radar and trying to figure out what's under there, do you ever encounter things like, "Oh, wait a minute"?

You run into a soil type you didn't expect or something else that was in the ground that nobody knew was there because, you know, the fields have been farmed, let's say, for a hundred-and-some years.

Lots of things go on over that time.

Are there other, are there things that you have to mitigate that you didn't expect to see after you've started the project?

[Peter] Right, good question.

We work with one of the professors at University of Toledo, and he has been helping us with the ground-penetrating radar, so he could speak more about the soil types on the site.

But one of the things that I find most interesting is the drainage tiles that were under the site.

So there were about 30 miles of drainage tiles- [Steve] Wow.

- That were identified in ground-penetrating radar.

We weren't able, with the funding that we had available, to actually take all of that out.

But what we tried to do is cut it and break it as much as possible because we don't want, those drainage tiles were designed to get the water off of the land so that people could farm it.

And we wanna do the exact opposite with this wetland restoration.

We wanna keep the water on the land, and one way to do that is to break up those drainage tiles.

So that was very helpful to have the radar and know where they were, and then we were able to do that.

And as soon as we did that and once the construction was done that Ben was talking about, we were able to see the site stay much wetter than it had been in the past.

And it was just so, it's been such a wonderful process to watch this evolve over the past few years.

Back in 2021, we planted over 350 species of native plants on the site, and now they're still starting to, some of them have germinated already.

Some of them are still coming up.

So it's just wonderful to watch the plants come onto, get established onto the site and then the wildlife find the site and get established as well.

- Yeah, now, what are some, I know specifically, what are some of the native plants that we would, that we'd see, we would recognize?

I mean we're talking, yeah.

[Ben] Right, well, the plants that I have specifically with my own eyes that I've seen germinate there, blue lupine, which is- [Steve] Oh, okay.

[Ben] That's very famous.

- [Steve] It's a big deal.

- It is, it is.

- It's a big deal.

- It supports the Karner blue butterfly, which is federally endangered, and it has been found on Kitty Todd Preserve, but not for a couple years, but we're holding out hope.

[Steve] Yeah, your keeping your eye out.

- Right, boy, what else has been there?

Dotted horsemint, boy, all ton of, manner of milkweed, swamp milkweed, butterfly milkweed, common milkweeds for the butterflies, of course, asters, five different species of asters are out there, blazing star is out there.

- [Peter] And the grasses?

- Oh, the grass, I can't name all the grasses and sedges, So big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass, all manner of native stuff, yeah.

[Steve] All the things that used to be here before we, man came along and changed all that.

And I think it's interesting, too, because you talk about, we know that obviously we tile, and we've talked about this on other programs with regard to, you know, dealing with the issues of how fast water gets to the lake and what's in that water and that kind of thing.

But when you hear the fact that you're talking 300 acres roughly and 30 miles of tile- - [Ben] Yeah, that's right.

- That's, I mean, even to somebody who grew up on a farm, that seems like a lot of stuff, but that field needed to be drained to farm it, and so consequently the people did whatever it did.

And you're probably talking a lot of cases, old red clay and old concrete tile and- [Peter] That's right.

- As opposed to the plastic that is used now.

But yeah, it's gotta be quite a thing to actually see it go back to the way it was before we got here.

And then I think the other thing, when we talk about, somebody say, "Oh, yeah, they're gonna build a wetland," I think people go, "How can you build a wetland?

[Peter] Right.

- And yet the reality is that's, there is a process, and you guys have described it pretty well.

Do you ever run into situations where maybe people adjacent to the area you're gonna convert are like, "Well, wait a minute, I don't want water," because obviously farmers want their fields to be relatively dry.

[Peter] That's right.

- And maybe neighbors even go, "I don't want a, you know, a swamp next to me."

How do you, do you have to deal with that sometimes?

And if you do, how do you, obviously you talk with people, you educate them, you try to explain to them, "Look, this is gonna be a benefit," but that's gotta be a little bit of a challenge occasionally, I would think.

[Ben] It can be, fortunately with this project, it wasn't - [Steve] It wasn't?

Okay.

- We acquired this land from a farmer, and the farming community around it was very supportive.

In fact, the farmers were there in attendance on the opening day and spoke a little bit.

So there's been largely really positivity surrounding this particular transformation.

But there can be concerns about the land ownership, the water.

It's our responsibility to have it constructed correctly so the water stays where it's supposed to stay, which is on our land, and not spill over onto the road or onto adjacent properties.

Really, that was the main concern is flooding, and so far, it's held very well, and there's been no issues.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah, because, oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Peter] I'll just add that the site is not very wet all year round.

We see a lot of variation.

For example, right now, it's June and it's quite dry.

But we've noticed that in the late fall, there's quite a bit of rain and then snow, and when that snow melts, the site holds a lot of water.

And so we've noticed that it tends to be wettest in the first few months of the year from about late winter till early spring, and then it starts drying out.

And so it's actually quite a interesting thing to watch the site change over the course of the year.

[Ben] Which means also then mosquitoes aren't really that big of a problem for neighboring properties.

[Steve] Sure, yeah.

That would be the other thing.

[Ben] because it dries up before they actually are able to spawn, really.

- When we come back, 'cause I think what it says is nature is going back to what nature is.

It's doing what, it's overcome man's intervention, and now this is the way it was before we got here.

Back in just a moment.

We're gonna talk about more about wetlands with the Nature Conservancy in Ohio here on "The Journal."

You're with us here on "The Journal."

Our guests are Ben Bomlitz and Dr. Peter Blank from the Nature Conservancy in Ohio.

We talked a lot about Sandhill Crane Wetlands, but as you mentioned earlier, Dr. Blank, the fact is this is part of the greater Oak Openings region, which is much bigger than I think, even though it's been talked about a lot and obviously has been maintained in a lot of ways, it's still a pretty impactful thing and something that we continue to restore and add to.

And this is, the Sandhill Crane, it's kind of a piece of that.

- That's, right.

Thank you, yes.

The Oak Openings region is, as I mentioned earlier, is a large area that spans from Northwest Ohio up into Southeast Michigan, and we are working with a variety of different partners in the region to try to restore this habitat.

These areas, areas of habitats such as wet prairie and oak savanna, they used to be here, thousands and thousands of acres used to be here, but we've lost a lot of that due to development and agriculture and various things.

So we're working with our partners in the region to try to bring back those types of areas.

We work with state agencies, county agencies, city governments, township governments to try to restore habitats on their properties because we can't do it alone.

The Nature Conservancy can only do a little bit, but we can help our partners achieve their goals for restoration in the region.

And so it's been really great to work with so many different partners throughout the region.

- Yeah, well, and you make a good point, too, because obviously this is a level of expertise and the range of expertise that's needed.

Not every jurisdiction has all of those resources available.

So I assume what you guys can do is help connect them with other people who can put all those pieces together with them and for them.

[Peter] That's correct, and sometimes we help them do restoration on their own properties.

We do a lot of invasive plant control, for example, and we might help them with that, or we might help them through grant funding.

We might be able to give them some grant funding to allow them to take care of it themselves.

So it depends on where it is and the partner we're working with.

But we have a variety of different ways we're working to try to restore this Oak Openings region.

- Well, you mentioned something interesting.

This is, I'm gonna throw this out there.

I know we didn't talk about this before.

Are there things that people plant thinking they're doing the right thing to restore habitat?

Like, oh, because I've heard people say, you know, "White pine was never part of Northwest Ohio."

Well, pine is everywhere now in Northwest Ohio, and I know in Oak Openings they've been clearing out a lot of the things that were planted back in the '30s and the '20s and through the Conservation Corps era, that kind of thing.

So are there certain things that you'd say, "No, no, whatever you do, don't plant that in your yard or by your pond" or whatever that create more problems than they believe they solve?

- Absolutely, many of them are really showy plants that, or showy grasses that we've gotten from Europe or Asia that really have the same climate zone.

But the problem with when we plant these ornamental plants is that they don't understand boundaries.

They don't understand that they're supposed to stay in your garden.

They'll be propagated and continue to be pollinated by everything that pollinates everything else natively.

And the issue is nothing really eats them.

They don't have any natural predators.

- [Steve] Natural predators, ah.

- And they just kind of explode.

Oftentimes their growing season is longer.

They green up before our native plants.

They stay green later than native plants, and then they just out-compete everything, and they can throw out many, many more seeds.

So yes, some of these are really, burning bush, the beautiful burning bush in the fall that my parents- [Steve] (laughs) Uh-oh.

- Yeah, my parents and many people still have.

[Steve] That we all have.

- We're seeing that in our woodland areas.

[Steve] Ah, yeah, oh, yeah.

- As well as honeysuckle and bittersweet, you know.

We make wreaths out of the bittersweet and stuff in the fall.

Purple loosestrife is coming into our wetlands.

This big reed, canary grass that is really in wetlands taking over as well as you'll see along the roadside, it's called Phragmites australis is the genus/species, and it's this tall plume grass that you'll see in ditches.

[Steve] Oh, okay, sure.

- Especially going up into Michigan, and it will just completely take over.

[Steve] Dominate the area.

- And what it does, it out-competes everything and creates what we call a monoculture where it's just one plant where really it should be hundreds or thousands of species of plants.

[Steve] And that and that deprives the other, the animal life and other plant life.

You said because we're looking for migratory insects and things like that, so then that doesn't exist for them.

So it's a, yeah.

- [Ben] Correct.

- Yeah, because I know obviously we think we're doing a, I think we always assume planting something is a good thing no matter what it is, but the reality is, in some cases, you're actually doing more damage than than good by putting something in the ground like that.

[Ben] Right, there are hedgerows that used to be built for natural fences for cattle and horses made out of multiflora rose and buckthorn.

And those two plants are some of the two worst invaders that we're really having to- [Steve] To continue to fight.

- Oh, well, we use, we try to combat it with using fire.

We actually burn some areas.

We call it prescribed burns, though, not controlled, because you don't control fire.

You prescribe that as a treatment.

We do our best to contain it.

No, we do well with that, but we, herbicide, mechanical means.

I mean, there's three or four different ways that we're constantly trying to push back these invasive and invader species.

- Yeah, because I can remember, this goes a long time ago, "60 Minutes" talked about kudzu in the South.

And that was the first time I think people thought, "Wow, you've got a plant that just literally takes over everything, every area it comes in contact with."

And again, you think anything that grows, "Oh, it's selected its spot there voluntarily.

That's a good place for it."

The reality is no, it'll continue to dominate.

It's like Russian olive or whatever.

[Ben] That's it.

- Whatever the other name is, there's obviously a better name, a more accurate name.

But those are incredibly invasive once they get a foothold, and then the birds do things, and next thing you know, you've got acres and acres of Russian olive blocking everything else out, yeah.

[Ben] Yeah, that's right, Callery pear, the same.

[Steve] Yeah, oh, yeah.

- And now Callery pear is illegal to sell.

And so we're hoping that more nurseries and more of those types of entities and the bigger box stores that sell these things get more on board and understand that everything green isn't necessarily- [Steve] Necessarily good.

- The way to go.

[Steve] The way to go.

Isn't appropriate for this area.

- Right.

- If there are things that people, and obviously you don't rely strictly on employed people.

Volunteers, I'm sure, help with The Nature Conservancy as well.

Is there a way for people to get involved that wanna volunteer and help and become part of reconstructing nature the way it used to be here in Ohio?

[Peter] Absolutely, please contact us at The Nature Conservancy in Ohio.

We'd love to get you in touch with our volunteer coordinator.

We can always use volunteers with different things like invasive plant control and seed collection.

And we also can perhaps get people in touch with our partners and see if maybe our partner agencies need some help with volunteers as well.

- Great, good, well, Dr. Peter Blank and Ben Bomlitz, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us.

I think we all learned a lot today about the good things to do and things maybe not to do.

But then obviously people should get out and check out the Sandhill Crane Wetlands area, and I guess, and watch for the next one and watch the development, because that's obviously gotta be an intriguing part of it, watching it go from a farm field to what it is now and saying, "Wow."

It's hard, because you know, look at some of the photos you guys have, and it's hard to believe that that was a farm field back when you first started, so it's pretty amazing.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night, eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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