Here is this cool opportunity – deep water over here totally disconnected from the rest of the river. In the years that followed, sediment removed from the river’s federal navigation channel as part of ongoing navigational dredging by USACE was certified as clean by state and federal standards and acceptable for beneficial use. More than 1 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment were removed. Environmental Protection Agency began navigational dredging of the river to make way for environmental dredging by the EPA, New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation, Honeywell, and Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. In 2011, as part of a community-led effort, USACE and the U.S. Upstream from Unity Island is the Buffalo River, which was declared biologically dead in 1969 after decades of industrial and municipal pollution.

When the island was remediated in 2000 and re-opened as a park by the city and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the north pond was left sitting as a pool of deep water, disconnected from the Niagara River just outside its west embankment. In the 1900s, Unity Island was used as Buffalo’s landfill, and its north pond was originally constructed to receive more waste. Slow and shallow water habitats critical to healthy aquatic ecosystems in the area have been depleted by erosion and manmade impacts over the course of the 20 th century. “This region has a long history of wetland loss,” said Andrew Hannes, ecologist with the USACE Buffalo District. Nearly a year after construction was completed, the island’s North Pond is showing tremendous results. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District spent two years building the basis for a wetland using material dredged from the nearby Buffalo River.

What was once nearly a landfill is now a thriving wetland ecosystem in the City of Buffalo’s back yard.Īt Unity Island on the West Side of the city, the U.S.

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