Developed through a project design award, the team, co-led by the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia, piloted new passive sediment management (PSM) strategies at river mouths and nearshore areas to create critical wetland habitat, improve water quality, support local economies, and greatly reduce the cost and environmental impacts from dredging.

Ports and harbors are located at river mouths, formerly rich ecosystems, that are still some of the most ecologically productive and sensitive areas in the region. Managing sediment is a significant challenge in these systems addressed with a limited set of conventional tools –dredging, confined and open lake disposal, and limited beneficial reuse. PSM uses the natural flows and river processes to direct sediment to desirable areas (such as shorelines and shallow areas) and away from undesirable areas (deep channels).  This creates healthy wetland and benthic habitat benefiting both aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, creates recreational and tourism opportunities in the ports, and greatly reduces the need for dredging.

With Fund support, this team successfully piloted different PSM strategies at four locations in the Great Lakes: Ashtabula, OH, and Lorain, OH (both on Lake Erie); Port Bay, NY (Lake Ontario); and Illinois Beach State Park, Waukegan, IL (Lake Michigan). The team identified recreational and medium-sized ports as ripe for this type of innovation, owing in part to movement in these communities to develop their recreational and ecological resources and the uncertainty of federal funding for dredging.