Logan Dunn and Elaine Hall
Assistant Resource Managers
For the first time, Metro Parks’ Resource Management team has embarked on a wetland construction project while doing all the set up and construction work entirely in-house. Previous wetland construction projects relied on the help of outside contractors or the Metro Parks Roving Crew, but the new wetlands at Glacier Ridge Metro Park have broken the mold, so to speak. This is an important milestone in the Resource Management team’s development and helps offset the costs of contracting this type of work out. Funding for the construction project is via a collaboration of Amazon Web Services and Ohio’s H2Ohio initiative to fund wetlands.
The site of the new wetlands is a 45-acre area on the northwest corner of the park. Three separate wetlands have been created in the area, which had been a farmed agricultural field in decades past, but which Metro Parks had converted to a cool-season grassland habitat when Glacier Ridge Metro Park opened in 2002. Over time, the site became dominated by invasive callery pear trees, which significantly lowered the ecological value of the site. The Glacier Ridge H2Ohio Wetland Project aims to restore the hydrology of the site and target local water filtration and watershed health. North Fork Indian Run, a tributary to the Scioto River, runs through the center of the new wetland area and the hydrology of the site sheds naturally towards the river.
As part of the project, Metro Park will implement a reforestation plan for the wetland area to complement the area to the south, which was restored to a mid-successional habitat, with two vernal pools, in 2003 and 2004. A mid-successional habitat is an area geared towards a transition from a cleared field to a mature woodland. This area had been funded via a partnership with the government’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, and their WHIP program, which stands for Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. Reforestation will use bare root seedlings and 1- to 3-gallon potted plants and will begin in the fall, with completion next spring, 2027.
Some tile had been disrupted near the project location during the previous WHIP plantings, and additional tile excavations were needed in developing the three new wetlands. Construction of the three wetland depressions and berms has now been completed and they have filled with water from all the rain we have had in the past few weeks. The three wetland cells cover an area of about 3.4 acres.
THE PRAIRIE OAKS H2OHIO WETLAND
Another wetland project funded via Ohio’s H2Ohio Fund reached substantial completion recently in the northern end of Prairie Oaks Metro Park. Metro Parks acquired the 130-acre parcel in 2009. Historically it consisted of agricultural fields, which Metro Parks maintained as old fields through biannual mowing until a more targeted restoration effort could occur. The site receives tile and surface stormwater runoff from private agricultural fields to the east. The project site’s heavily tiled infrastructure readily and rapidly culminated into point source discharge carried beneath Amity Road, outletting directly into Big Darby Creek just 900 feet to the west.
For its H2Ohio grant application, Metro Parks proposed that 10 acres of wetland could be constructed in these fields in a manner that receives direct surface and tile runoff from the active farm fields to the east. This would extend the riparian buffer for Big Darby Creek and filter incoming nutrient and sediment runoff. The manner, or design, for this particular wetland complex is called a “treatment train.”
The primary benefit of a treatment train wetland complex is that it slows surface and tile runoff before it reaches a larger body of water such as a river, lake or aquifer. As water moves through the system of wetland cells it increases the time water stays there and slows its velocity. Sediment and heavy metals can settle out, and excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus can be absorbed by plants around the wetland. The Prairie Oaks H2Ohio wetland is estimated to absorb 418 pounds of nitrogen, 161 pounds of phosphorus, and 96 tons of sediment per year. The wetland construction reached substantial completion at the end of June. The surrounding fields will receive complete habitat restoration later this year and into spring 2027. This includes planting a native prairie, plus trees and shrubs to complete the stream corridor’s riparian area.
A WETLANDS REMINDER
Pickerington Ponds, Battelle Darby Creek, Prairie Oaks and Slate Run, are just a few of the parks with large wetland systems that Metro Parks has restored in the past. These wetlands provide critical habitat for sandhill cranes, macroinvertebrates, waterfowl and shorebirds, plus many other animals, all of which call these wetlands home. Their ‘homes’ were disrupted previously for conventional agriculture and human infrastructure development. Wetlands are one of nature’s most magnificent ecosystems. An ecosystem that relies solely on the amount of water it holds to determine the vegetative communities, wildlife inhabitants and ecosystem services. Wetlands are among the most ecologically diverse systems in the world, even compared to the tropical rainforests.
As an avid birder and lover of Sandhills, Egrets and Herons I applaud your efforts!!!!