In 2016 the Little Calumet River Conservation Collaborative began planning for habitat restoration, stewardship, and community engagement across a 10-mile stretch of the West Branch of the Little Calumet River in Northwest Indiana. Using a robust spatial prioritization and secretive marsh bird monitoring as an indicator for overall wetland health, the Collaborative identified over 1,400 acres of priority habitat to be restored, contributing to local efforts to build a more climate-resilient Calumet region. Relationships were then carefully built with City of Gary officials and the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission, two of the major landowners across the floodplain basin.
Since 2019, the Collaborative has been conducting on-the-ground restoration across 400 acres. In 2023, water control structures were installed at two of these sites, allowing for strategic water level management to minimize invasive plant species and allow for the recovery of marsh vegetative communities.
Community engagement, especially in Gary, Indiana, has been prioritized and will soon reach new depths thanks to two federal grants to conduct engineering and design across 1,100 new acres, including potential remeandering of the Little Calumet River. Input from local residents will help guide and be incorporated into the site’s restoration plans to center the needs of the surrounding underserved communities.
This presentation will aim to detail the complexities and need for community-centered conservation, especially in Environmental Justice communities like Gary, Indiana and many others across the Great Lakes basin.
