BUFFALO, New York, August 21, 2008 (ENS) – A new shoreline trail that opens a prime section of Buffalo’s Outer Harbor is now ready for the public after undergoing a $13.5 million environmental restoration to improve public access to the waterfront.

“This site has gone through a transformation,” said state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis, “from an environmental wasteland, standing as a barrier between the Buffalo community and the Lake Erie waterfront, to a spectacular green space and recreational resource.”

At the formal opening of the Greenway Nature Trail on Wednesday, Grannis said, “The Outer Harbor’s makeover will help draw more people to the waterfront and stimulate further revitalization around one of Buffalo’s greatest natural assets.”

Buffalo’s Outer Harbor before the
makeover (Photo credit unknown)

The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and the Department of Environmental Conservation collaborated to turn a previously unusable and inaccessible stretch of shoreline into a clean and scenic Greenway Nature Trail.

Gregory Stamm, NFTA Chairman said it will take many steps to revive the waterfront but Buffalo is making “tangible progress” with the completion of the Greenway Nature Trail, which “permanently dedicates beautiful lakeside green space for public access,” he said.

“The Greenbelt preserves the water’s edge for public park space, makes adjacent land more attractive for future development, and offers residents another new opportunity to enjoy Buffalo’s waterfront,” said Congressman Brian Higgins, who secured some funding for the project through federal highway programs.

“This project in conjunction with the Outer Harbor Parkway project under construction now provides unprecedented access to this waterfront stretch,” Higgins said.

“With this momentum, in just 18 to 24 months residents will have what they demanded and deserve – a completely transformed Outer Harbor with beautiful boardwalks, bike and pedestrian paths, recreational space, fishing piers accompanied by an efficient and attractive roadway to take them there.”

The Greenway Nature Trail, also called the Greenbelt, stretches more than a mile along Lake Erie’s shore from the former Pier restaurant to the Terminal B building of Buffalo’s old port facilities and connects to an existing bike path.

The trail is part of a 120-acre parcel of land along Buffalo’s Outer Harbor that is currently owned by the NFTA.

From the mid-19th century, the land was artificially built by dredging soils from the bottom of the Buffalo Outer Harbor and depositing the material along the shoreline, a practice that continued until the mid-1960s.

Buffalo Greenway Trail at Bell Slip looking
south. Wind turbines can be seen in
the distance. (Photo courtesy NFTA)

Dredged from the harbor shipping channels, the soils were contaminated with municipal ash and construction disposal debris, and the waste products of heavy industry that once existed along the waterfront.

In 2002, the NFTA site was accepted into the DEC’s Environmental Restoration Program, making it eligible for more than $12 million in cleanup funds.

Under DEC oversight, NFTA remediated contaminated soils along the shoreline and stabilized the shoreline slope with a heavy stone embankment to prevent erosion.

Ecological improvements along the shoreline and within the bay area known as the Bell Slip also were made. Shallow-water fish habitat that is conducive to spawning for local fish species was built. NFTA planted native vegetation along both sides of the pathway to attract local wildlife.

Parks & Trails New York chose the North Buffalo Greenway as one of its Healthy Trails, Healthy People projects because of the citizen interest and support for the greenway; the alarmingly high rates of cardiovascular disease in Erie County; and the multiple opportunities to link to bus routes, a light rail metro station, schools, health centers, parks and other community resources, including the Tonawanda Rail Trail, which is in the planning stages and is a newly-selected HTHP project.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said teamwork has achieved an “incredible outcome.”

“With this great achievement,” said the mayor, “we again mark significant progress in the redevelopment of Buffalo’s waterfront, making this area more accessible to the public, improved environmentally and linking this transformed waterfront area of the Outer Harbor to existing bike paths and the ongoing Outer Harbor Parkway project.

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

TreeHugger is often asked variations of what we know as the “million dollar question”: “If there was one thing I could do to save the planet today, what would that be?” While our answers tend to skew toward something along the lines of “change your lightbulbs [www.sundancechannel.com]“, when it really comes down to it, nothing shrinks your ecological footprint like shrinking the footprint of your home. As such, since we’ve been talking about big ideas this week, we’ll take a look at what would be a big change for most of us: living in a prefab trailer or other “smaller” home.

While some folks might blanche at the idea of cramming all their stuff into 250 or 300 square feet (or less), we’ve seen a handful of dwellings that can do the same job as a house three or four times it’s size. The Sustain MiniHome [www.sustain.ca] (above, left; we covered it here [www.treehugger.com] and here [www.treehugger.com] at TreeHugger) is one of the most thoughtful, green, complete home designs at 350 square feet. Several climate-specific variants of the miniHome are available to be adapted to the extremes of southern, ocean and even arctic climates and can be further optimized by orientation, glazing and shading options to take full advantage of the “natural assets” (like passive solar radiation) of each site. m-house [www.m-house.org] (above, right; covered here [www.treehugger.com] on TreeHugger) is another great example of living in a sleek, efficient, green house that happens to be a trailer. At just over 1000 square feet, it’s “big” for the movement, but boasts two bedrooms to complement the open floor plan that encompasses the kitchen/dining/living area, and might just be enough space to house a small, green-living family.

As odd as the idea might seem, it’s been gaining steam for awhile, and is making progress thanks to some creative media coverage. Our friends at Apartment Therapy are smack dab in the middle of their annual Smallest Coolest Apartments [www.apartmenttherapy.com] contest; inspired by some of the tiny spaces that folks cram themselves into in New York City, the contest is just what it sounds like. They look for the most thoughtfully designed, efficient and beautiful apartments and homes around the world, and there’s just one catch: 650 square feet or less. The idea has even caught on at the New York Times, who recently took a closer look [travel.nytimes.com] at a really small house: one of the 120 square foot homes manufactured by Modern Cabana [www.moderncabana.com], pictured above (on the right). You don’t even need your own land for some of these; LoftCube [www.loftcube.net], a German company (above, at left, covered here [www.treehugger.com] on TreeHugger), builds prefab “lofts” that are designed to go on the roofs of skyscraping downtown buildings. Sort of gives new meaning to “the sky’s the limit,” but when it comes to big ideas of living small, we can think of no better moniker.