Monitoring our wetlands

A wetland monitoring team from Heidelberg University is playing an integral role in Ohio's H2Ohio initiative to improve water quality in the state and reduce nutrients and pollutants going into Lake Erie. "It's not often that you see this sort of an investment in something like water quality," said Laura Johnson, director of the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg. "What Ohio is doing is a bit unprecedented. My guess is that other states will try to copy this approach. "Citizens should be super-excited and proud that there's been an investment on future sustainability in our water and our land," she said. "I think that's really exciting." While Gov. Mike DeWine's entire H2Ohio initiative has three focuses — wetlands, farm programs to reduce nutrient runoff and drinking water and similar aspects — NCWQR is one of a five-university "dream team" of scientists given the task of testing whether wetlands are the answer to improving Ohio's water quality. Known as the LEARN collaborative — Lake Erie Aquatic Research Network — the Heidelberg lab is working with Kent State, Ohio State, Bowling Green State University, University of Toledo and Wright State. The team has developed a plan and the local lab has its own set of wetlands to monitor, as do the other four universities. One of the main questions to be answered is how well wetlands can reduce the amount of phosphorus going into Lake Erie, Johnson said. "Phosphorus is kind of a tricky one," she said. "It likes to stick around." On farmland, phosphorus is needed to grow optimal crops, but the portion not used by plants tends to remain in the soil and can be washed out during heavy rain events. While wetlands have the potential to accumulate the excess phosphorus before it washes into streams, Johnson said it's not clear whether the accumulations will remain in the wetlands long term or eventually end up in the lake. "We're going to be monitoring all of these wetlands and learn what works and doesn't work," she said. "And we'll be providing some management recommendations." For example, she said specialized teams will be testing how much phosphorus and other nutrients are held by wetland vegetation and another specialized team will be studying how surface water in wetlands interacts with groundwater. Johnson said LEARN has been meeting frequently for about two years — mainly online during the pandemic — to develop the system that is now in place. At times, she said the group has met twice a week. "We pulled our team together and I think it's working really well," she said. "It's really helped us stay in communication." She said it was important to everyone that the group decide on the best way to collect data so results could be compared. Local monitoring Nutrient management is only one of the aspects of wetlands being studied. As field manager for the Heidelberg water quality lab, Jakob Boehler, is at the forefront of in-wetland testing and data gathering. He and Heidelberg students have been monitoring Fruth Wetland on SR 18 west of Fostoria since last summer as well as Sandusky Headwaters wetland in Crawford County and Redhorse Bend in Sandusky County where US 20 crosses the Sandusky River. As the number of completed wetlands grows, the workload will increase until all wetlands are being monitored within the next two years. "We all have experts in certain areas," he said. "We're all sharing our knowledge and abilities." Boehler said data is being collecting to gather a wide spectrum of information on soils, water, "and all the stuff that plays into what wetlands are." "We're trying to capture and find out if those wetlands are doing what they're supposed to do," he said. "The hope is that they will." In any case, Boehler said wetlands will benefit wildlife and improve the health of the local ecosystem. Fruth Wetland, which was completed in July 2020 (except for plantings and signage added the following spring), already has become a working wetland. While he was conducting monitoring work Tuesday, he said he saw aquatic wildlife that has made the wetland their home. "There are frogs and bugs and stuff," he said. "Even this time of year there were some tadpoles." Over the summer, the wetland also drew waterfowl and other wildlife. Fruth Wetland was the first H2Ohio wetland project in the state to be completed. The 18-acre property was purchased on behalf of Seneca Parks with a $309,000 H2Ohio grant. The project was designed and constructed by the Davey Resources Group, which specializes in wetland restoration. Boehler said he uses specialized equipment as well as simple measuring sticks and buckets to take measurements and conduct tests on such things as turbidity, oxygen levels and levels of phosphorus and nitrogen. "We basically have a small team of me, some students and sometimes other folks in the lab," he said. Team members wade in the water, going out as far as they can to get samples. "We go the furthest toward the middle that we can," he said. Most of the measurements are recorded in the field, but some such as phosphorus and nitrogen levels, are tested back in the lab on campus. The main objective for this year has been taking baseline samples so later tests can be measured against them to determine positive or negative changes as the years go on. Sample are being taken monthly, depending on weather and flooding. Next year, Boehler said monthly monitoring will continue but the number of wetlands being monitored will steadily increase from three to 13. "That's a lot of monitoring," he said. Although the exact length of time for the LEARN monitoring program has yet to be determined, the leaders are hoping for at least 10 years. "That will give us a variability of seasons," Boehler said. "Some are wet, some are dry in that 10-year period." Boehler said there's really no results to report from the first summer of monitoring. "Nothing notable was discovered, which was expected," he said. "We haven't really dove into the data yet to get a good snapshot of what's going on. "We'll do a deep dive into the data to see if adjustments are needed," he said. "This is our first time monitoring wetlands at this scale." In the future, data collection will get more complex because different wetland types will require varying data-collection methods. "Each one will be different. There's no two that are the same. But at the same time we want to get the same background data," he said. "We'll find out which methods work best." Boehler said one monitoring session takes about two hours in the field and then more time "running samples" in the lab. Also, travel time will increase as wetlands farther from Tiffin are completed. "I'm looking forward to doing all of this and the hope is it really does make a difference in the watershed," he said. He said it's great that funding for the wetland projects and monitoring has been initiated at the state level. "I really hope it provides the change we need to see, benefiting Lake Erie and its health," he said. Goals That's the main goal — to find which type of wetlands work best to alleviate water quality issues in Lake Erie. Since H2Ohio was introduced in 2019, about 60 wetland projects have been completed or are underway that restore, enhance or create 8,405 acres of wetlands to filter 104,000 acres of land, using $64.5 million. Johnson said one of LEARN's goals is to find out how well wetlands work in filtering nutrients and pollutants. "Our first hope is that all of the wetlands function as they should and help clean up our water," she said. The focus is on Lake Erie. However, another benefit of the large wetlands project is environmental, and how land can be put back to its original wetland condition for the benefit of people and nature. "It's a really good demonstration," she said. "If you put it back to where it should be, it can provide an awful lot of benefits." Another aspect of the wetland program is the long-term benefit of increasing natural wetland habitat. "There will be nature areas for the public to see," she said. And many benefits to plants and animals. Long term, Johnson said Ohio's program is likely to be copied by other states. "If we get to that point on how to manage wetlands for phosphorus removal, that knowledge can be used anywhere," she said. "Once we get this going, then we can go anywhere else in Michigan or other Great Lakes states. If this works for us, it'll probably work for them." In the meantime, the monitoring program will be watching the results. "We want them all to work perfectly, but we're anticipating that adjustments will be needed," she said.