CATCH AND RELEASE
Catch and Release is a design strategy for exploiting dredge spoils and lacustrine processes of Lake Ontario to enhance wetland habitat variety at the local level along its south shore. The project was created by Eli Sands and formed under the supervision of Catherine Seavitt Nordenson and Meg Studer in the third year comprehensive MLA design studio at the Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York. SITE Lake Ontario is the last stop along America’s Great Lakes hydrologic cycle, which moves one-fifth of the world’s fresh water from Middle America to the Atlantic Ocean. The quantities of water and the speed at which it moves were once determined by the seasonal water cycle, but the continued disturbance of Anthropocene controls (such as diversions, dams, and dredging) and the effects of climate change are now also contributing to the behavior of the Great Lakes’ water flow and coastal ecosystem. In 1959 Lake Ontario’s water level was constricted by the construction of the Moses-Saunders Dam as part of St. Lawrence Seaway Project. The ease of access to the Atlantic that was created by the Seaway Project has had many unintended consequences. Foreign ships entering the Seaway brought with them invasive species, causing massive ecological and economic impacts. Controlled water levels have also effectively eliminated the natural wetland disturbance cycle, which relies on a fluctuation in high and low water levels. The static water level has left the shoreline of Lake Ontario more homogeneous in its biotic composition, which has compromised the valuable shoreline fisheries. PROGRAM STATEMENT The simple idea of Catch and Release is that if you can’t change the water, change the land. The program for Catch and Release is designed to work by entwining Anthropocene dredge cycles with the natural process of longshore drift, creating novel submerged and emergent wetland constructs. The skeleton of this design will be strategically placed weir/breakwater features. The features will be modeled and staged in such a way as to induce creation of the natural formation of baymouth bars and spits.
The dredge cycle is a critical component of the development of these new artificial catchments. Dredging in Lake Ontario operates on cyclical periods that happen every two to three years, depending on the harbor. In Catch and Release, the substantial quantities of dredge spoils, most of which are currently deposited into the deep lake basins, will be redirected into staging areas adjacent to the embayment constructs to allow littoral drift to naturally deposit spoils along the catchment features. The initial placement of the spoils will shift over time, ensuring variance in embayment build-up and promoting nourishment in underdeveloped areas. Furthermore, the use of ice booms could help modify and enhance sediment transport through freeze and melt cycles. With enough time, these features will develop into protected off-shore embayments, creating suitable habitats for submerged and emergent wetland biota. This increase in wetland area will be beneficial for the continued integrity of the Lake Ontario fishing industry. Furthermore, the controlled scale of the artificial embayments will enable small-level management practices for invasive species such as zebra and quagga mussels. The staging of these catchment structures will be placed an estimated 200-500 feet off-shore. This placement is an anticipatory design choice in preparation for the probability of lower lake levels caused by climate change. If lake levels were to recede, these already established habitats would help compensate for upland wetland loss and provide a “line-in-the-sand” to prevent urban encroachment onto the newly exposed shores.