Bill
Collins, Executive Director, Thumb Land Conservancy
On June 28, 2010, the Thumb Land
Conservancy received ownership of its third nature preserve, the 11.5-acre
Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary in Fort Gratiot Township, Saint Clair County. The
parcel was given to the TLC by Ray and Nancy Peltier to satisfy State of Michigan
requirements, then briefly administered through the Michigan Department of
Natural Resources and Environment, for the long-term protection of wetland on
the property. As with our first preserve, the Dead End Woods Sanctuary in Fort
Gratiot, the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary is preserved under a State
conservation easement. With my help, the Peltier’s worked out a deal with Dr.
Syed Hamzavi to preserve the wetland and adjoining upland on their property as mitigation
for wetland to be impacted by an expansion of the Hamzavi Dermatology office in
Fort Gratiot. In accepting ownership of the mitigation property from the
Peltier’s, the TLC agreed to be responsible for submitting annual monitoring
reports to the MDNRE, now the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
again.
Until about 2005, preservation of existing natural wetland
was rarely used in Saint Clair County as mitigation, or replacement, for permitted
wetland impacts. Most mitigation was attempted through artificial wetland
constructed in upland. It’s an expensive and risky way to go, and has nothing
to do with the natural history of the area. Construction seems especially senseless
when we have all this great natural wetland already here, just setting around
getting filled in without permits. Sometimes drained wetlands are restored as
mitigation, but usually if a wetland is drained, the owner wants to keep it
that way. Preservation of existing wetland as mitigation through the DEQ can be
difficult, because it must be considered high quality, or must have exceptional
functions, and must be preserved at a 10 to 1 replacement ratio. That means,
for every acre of wetland filled or otherwise eliminated, 10 acres of wetland
must be preserved. That made preservation hard to compete with constructed or
restored wetland, until about 2008 when development and land prices dropped
significantly. Then, some landowners actually welcomed the idea of selling their
land for preservation. It was a real twist, one that I never expected to see.
Since then, preservation has been the way to go for wetland mitigation.
The Peltier Beach
Ridge Sanctuary is located a few hundred feet south of the end of West Montevista
Drive, south of Metcalf Road, and along the east side of the Detroit Water
Board property. The intake pipes from Lake Huron for the Detroit Water facility
are very near the north property line. Also just north is the Galbraith
Plant Preserve owned by the Michigan Nature Association, and four small lots north
of the MNA preserve, owned by the Saint Clair County Drain Commissioner to be
preserved as wetland mitigation for a future project. Although some people use
the Detroit Water line property to enter the sanctuary from East Montevista
Drive, the actual entrance is from North Shoreview Drive, just east of the
intersection with San Juan Drive.
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| Location of the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary. 2010 aerial photograph. |
The Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary and other land in this
area is part of a much larger and ecologically unique beach ridge and swale
landscape formed thousands of years ago along portions of the early Great Lakes
shoreline as water levels dropped, rose again, and then dropped to modern
levels after the last glacial period. The beach ridge and swale landscape in
this part of the Thumb is a long, narrow formation within about 1 mile of the
Lake Huron shoreline, extending from Port Huron into Sanilac County. The landscape
began forming about 11,500 years ago, as the last stages of the Wisconsinan
glacier melted back, and early Lake Huron was about 30 feet higher than today.
About 1,500 years later, the melting glacier uncovered a new outlet from the
Georgian Bay and the water dropped over 400 feet. The massive weight of glacial
ice depressed the earth’s crust for thousands of years, but as it melted, the
crust slowly rose and continues today. By 4,500 years ago, the drainage outlet
from Georgian Bay raised such that early Lake Huron filled to the Lake
Nipissing stage and back to the old shoreline of 7,000 years previous. Great
Lakes drainage was gradually limited to the Mississippi River through the old
Chicago outlet, and then to the Saint Clair River which rapidly down-cut and
lowered the Great Lakes to modern levels, leaving a series of beach ridges as
the water dropped.
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| Beach ridge and swale landscape in Fort Gratiot and Burtchville Townships. 1995 aerial photograph. |
The plant community and
landscape is often referred to as “wooded dune and swale complex”. But unlike
the dunes of west Michigan, the western shoreline of Lake Huron was not shaped so
much by wind as it was by water. “Beach ridge” is probably a more appropriate
descriptive phrase than “dune” for the landscape in the Thumb. As with all of the ridges
around the Great Lakes, the sands were first deposited as beaches that
gradually rose above the lake influence. Wind was a secondary influence, the
non-forested shoreward ridges becoming dunes. The ridges along the southwestern
shore of Lake Huron were probably less dune-like as prevailing winds are from
the west and diminished by adjoining forest to the west.
The Michigan Natural
Features Inventory http://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/
considers Great Lakes wooded dune (beach ridge) and swale
complex a distinct natural community both statewide and globally because of the
unique assemblage of physiographic, soil, and vegetative components that
provide high quality habitat for numerous shoreline species. While there are
landscapes of similar geologic origin along oceans and seas, the species of the
Great Lakes habitat are unique. The MNFI community abstract for wooded dune and swale complex can be found here:
In the southern Thumb, the
beach ridge and swale landscape is restricted to a narrow strip along Lake
Huron in Saint Clair County, in Fort Gratiot and Burtchville Townships, and some
small patchy occurrences in Sanilac County. The landscape is much more
extensive in Huron and Tuscola Counties along the Saginaw Bay, especially near
Port Crescent State Park. In Saint Clair County, it originally covered less
than 1% of the total land area, and has since been significantly reduced by
commercial and residential development. The landscape consists of a series of
upland sand ridges and mucky wetland troughs or swales between. In Saint Clair
County, the sand ridges average about 40 to 50 feet wide and 3 to 4 feet above
the adjoining swales. The swales are usually about as wide as the ridges, but
some are a few hundred feet wide. The largest and oldest beach ridge runs
continuously along the western limit of the landscape, furthest inland from
Lake Huron. This ridge was over 500 feet wide across most of its extent and may
have been over 30 feet high in some areas. Although much of it has been mined
out, this big sand ridge is still largely intact through Lakeside Cemetery and
into Port Huron near the Blue Water Bridges where it is about 15 feet higher
than adjoining land. Centuries ago, this ridge served as a burial ground for
Native American inhabitants whose burial mounds have been found near Port
Huron. The beach ridge and swale landscape provides not only unique habitat,
but also a record of Michigan’s post-glacial past.
Most of the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary is forested, except a large
trail that runs through the western part of the site, and portions of the sand
ridges in the east of the preserve. Like most of the landscape, the wetland
swales are covered by Green Ash, Black Ash, and Silver Maple. Of course, all of
the large ash trees are now dead and falling over because of the Emerald Ash
Borer. The upland beach ridges are covered largely by Black Cherry, Big-toothed
Aspen, and American Basswood, with scattered Black Oak and a few Northern
White-cedar. The lower ridge bases are lined with Paper Birch and covered by an
unusual concentration of Alternate-leaved Dogwood. Just across Metcalf Road, north
into Burtchville Township, Black Ash, Northern White-cedar, Eastern Hemlock,
and Yellow Birch increase in cover where Lake Huron is a stronger cooling
influence during the growing season.
Much of the beach ridge
and swale landscape in Saint Clair County was impacted years ago by logging, clearing,
draining, livestock grazing, and sand mining. Because the surrounding forest as
a whole has either been degraded or eliminated, subsequent forest species
recruitment has been severely diminished, which has limited the return of many
forest plants and therefore, the recovery of a mature forest community. The
dominance of invasive shrubs like Tartarian Honeysuckle, Common Privet, and
Garlic Mustard has further displaced mature forest species.
Despite so many impacts,
the landscape still contains high quality habitat with several unique species.
Like other parts of the landscape in Saint Clair County, a few sand ridges on the
Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary contain small patches of Purple-flowering
Raspberry - Rubus odoratus, the Lower Peninsula’s equivalent of the Upper
Peninsula’s Thimbleberry, with large flowers and large raspberry fruits that
can actually fit over a finger like a thimble. Purple-flowering Raspberry is
thought to be native to only 7 shoreline counties in Michigan. The species is
so restricted to this habitat in Saint Clair County that it’s symbolic of it.
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| Purple-flowering Raspberry on the nearby Lake Huron Woods Presbyterian Villages of Michigan property. |
Yellow
Lady’s-slipper orchid - Cypripedium calceolus grows in a variety of habitats,
but in Saint Clair County is largely restricted to the moist ridge bases and
mucky swales of this landscape. Several Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchids have been
found on the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary. Sometimes Pink Lady’s-slipper
orchids - Cypripedium acaule are found on the upper sand
ridges.
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| Yellow Lady’s-slipper orchid on land near the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary. |
The Eastern Hog-nosed Snake - Heterodon platirhinos
is a special reptilian inhabitant that has been found just a few hundred feet
south of the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary. They prefer the more open sand of
dunes and disturbed ground. They put on quite a show when aggravated, by flattening
their necks like a cobra, and then sometimes rolling over and playing dead with
their mouths hanging open. They can look imposing, but are harmless. The Eastern
Hog-nosed Snake is more common in the southern plains and southeastern US, but
is considered to be at some risk of extirpation in the Great Lakes region,
Ontario, and New England. The only places I’ve seen them are on back dunes and
beach ridges along the Great Lakes.
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| Eastern Hog-nosed Snake found just south of the Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary. |
While considered fairly common statewide,
the Blue-spotted Salamander - Ambystoma laterale is typically found in
this habitat and is either infrequent or elusive in other areas. One of the
most critical functions of this coastal forest habitat is the supports it
provides to an abundance of migratory birds as they move north and south along
the Lake Huron shoreline. The spring and summer breeding bird population is
very abundant and diverse in this area, especially the forest warblers which
are otherwise hard to come by.
The Peltier Beach Ridge Sanctuary is a high quality wetland and upland
complex with a unique geologic history, unique plant and animal community,
significant Great Lakes coastal habitat, good restoration potential, and a
great addition to the TLC holdings. The beach ridge and swale landscape is a
high priority area for the TLC and we continue working to promote preservation
of this area.
