The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a nearly $8 million contract for a restoration project on Braddock Bay in Greece.
The contract with a Wesson Group LLC from Johnstown, New York, includes the construction of a barrier beach, which would be a nearly 1700-foot long breakwater.
Josh Unghire is an ecologist with the Corps, and he says this really would taking the ecosystem back to the way it used to be.
“We’re proposing a structure that would be in some ways similar to the barrier beach that was historically present there in the early 1900s and before but has since eroded away. The barrier beach is necessary to protect the interior wetlands from the open energy of Lake Ontario."
The project also includes excavating the marsh located within Braddock Bay to increase the habitat complexity and diversity. Altogether, the federal government is providing $9.5 million for the project.
Unghire says the restoration project also involves doing some excavating in the wetlands at Braddock Bay.
"What this will do is this will create a more diverse hydrology, a more diverse typography that will then be more conducive to establishment of more different types of native vegetation rather than just cattail and in turn that will be better habitat for fish and wildlife species."
Construction on the project is expected to begin early next year and be completed in the fall. Final landscaping and plantings will happen in the spring of 2017.
