Detroit River Nonprofit Targets Wetlands Loss with Island Habitat Restoration

Aboard a boat traveling down the Detroit River, riverkeeper Bob Burns recalls a time when it was more convenient to live on one of the river’s uninhabited islands than to rent an apartment on the mainland.

“Once I got out of college, my parents moved to another location, and I needed a place to live,” said Burns, Detroit riverkeeper for the nonprofit Friends of the Detroit River, who grew up on the island of Grosse Ile in the 1960s and 1970s. 

“There was a spot on Stony Island, so I lived there year round for three years, and I actually was still going to school, taking some graduate classes, so I had to get on my snowmobile in the winter to go across to where we parked on Grosse Ile to get my car and then go to school from there.”

It’s the time in Burns’ life, he said, that spawned his passion for the Detroit River and illustrated the river’s ecological importance to the region.

On a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, Burns and staff from the FODR guided tours along the lower portion of the 32-mile international river.

Local residents, environmental advocates, and elected officials were invited to witness some of the organization’s recent restoration work on Celeron and Sugar Islands, two wetland habitats that were severely damaged by high water and wind erosion over the last century. 

The Detroit River holds a designation since 1987 as one of 43 Areas of Concern — AOC —  throughout the Great Lakes. It’s a label given by the International Joint Commission to bodies of water in the region with severe environmental degradation.

Through centuries of industrial use, the river’s fish and wildlife populations, as well as their original habitats, have declined.

“We’ve lost probably 95% of our coastal wetlands, particularly on the Detroit side” of the river, Burns said.

“The real value of what we are fortunate to have in the Detroit River is these larger islands that have been pretty much vacant since the day they were constructed naturally; they’ve been owned by different individuals but were never really developed.”

Detroit River restorations go from ‘what if’ to reality

These days, habitats like Celeron and Sugar Island are publicly owned and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. 

Over the last two decades, the FODR has partnered with federal, state, and local agencies to restore the remaining wetland in the area and remediate sediment that has accumulated along the river due to decades of legacy industrial pollution. 

As early as the 1990s, the nonprofit worked with representatives from the U.S. Geology Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as state officials from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and Department of Natural Resources to identify “103 habitat restoration projects up and down the 32 miles of Detroit shoreline,” said Mary Bohling, vice chair of the FODR board.

“From the time that we were designated as an AOC back in the late 1980s, all the way until 2010 when the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative became available, we were working on ‘what if’ situations,” said Bohling. “What if we got money? What would we want to do?”

In 2010, the EPA launched the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal program aimed at fixing up AOCs across the region. Of the original 103 projects the FODR brainstormed, the list dwindled to 14, with each intending to help restore local fish and wildlife populations and habitats, according to the Detroit River nonprofit’s staff.

As of 2025, all but one of those habitat restoration projects have been completed, with the total costs of restorations adding up to $50 million, riverkeeper Burns said. Efforts are underway to start the last one, but FDR still has more work to do.

As many as 4 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments rest at the bottom of the Detroit River, and the EPA estimates it would take until 2030 to completely clean up the PCBs, PAHs, and other contaminants.

To complete the toxic sediment cleanup efforts, the FODR is estimated by the EPA to need $1 billion. Of that amount, the organization will need to raise $350 million from local sources to receive the remaining federal dollars.

It’s a tall task, but one that the organization is committed to pursuing, even as recent staff turnover at the EPA and the political climate create some uncertainty.

“It’s been challenging to navigate decision making and what’s next,” said Tricia Blicharski, executive director of the FODR. “With the loss of staff, their time has become limited, so the engagement level that we had anticipated just hasn’t been the same, because of capacity.” 

She added: “It’s just slowing things down, but it doesn’t change our priority.”

Detroit River nonprofit aims to strengthen wildlife habitat

At one point in time, 8 acres of cattail wetland rested along Celeron Island. High water levels in the 1970s, and subsequently in the 1990s, washed them out. 

“This was a really productive wetland here, and now it’s gone,” said Burns. “When you get shallow water and you’ve got wave action, you get turbulence, and that basically stops all the vegetation growing.”

When the FODR embarked on its habitat restoration project, the group wanted to preserve what was left, while ensuring longevity for the next 50 to 100 years, Burns said.

The waters surrounding and within Celeron Island are an important spawning and refuge area for local fish species, as well as an ideal resting spot for migratory birds.

“We really didn’t want to affect the island,” the riverkeeper said. “We wanted to try to create a system where hopefully over time the wetland would be able to build up a little bit if we could reduce that hydraulic flow and wave action coming in off the lake here.”

In order to do that, the FODR built a series of overlapping dikes around the island made up of stone. 

Since the project’s completion, the island now boasts three-quarters of a mile of shoal along the outside of the island, and about another 2,000 feet of shoal on the north side. Those shoal areas, Burns said, returned vegetation to the area, and made the surrounding waters conducive for turtle nesting and a spawning ground for bass.

In early spring and late fall, he added, migratory birds such as cormorants, eagles, ospreys, and seagulls make the island their temporary home.

“If we wouldn’t have done this, eventually the entire wetland would be washed out and turned into two islands,” said Burns. “There’s about 29 acres of wetland in here that we’re protecting.”

At one point home to an amusement park, Sugar Island remained dormant throughout much of the 20th century, changing hands until it was eventually taken over by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

The 33-acre island owes its name to the numerous sugar maple trees that populated it at one time. In the last several decades, Sugar Island has faced significant erosion due to waves from Lake Erie, with trees falling into the water.

Now, through the project’s efforts, the island has five shoals sheltering the southern shoreline, creating a 10-acre pool for native vegetation and aquatic life.

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Ethan Bakuli is a Climate Solutions and Service Journalism Reporting Fellow. Bakuli joins the Planet Detroit team after covering education and community issues for Chalkbeat Detroit and working as a freelance journalist reporting on race and labor issues. Before launching his career as a reporter, he taught high school students how to produce audio and visual stories about their communities, an experience that cemented his belief in the power of community-led journalism.