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Redhorse Bend restoration project underway for new wetland preserve, park in Sandusky County

The area has been rehabilitated from farmland to wetland and prairie by the Black Swamp Conservancy to restore natural wildlife and improve Lake Erie water quality.

FREMONT, Ohio — It was farmland for decades, but now there is a new nature park coming to the Fremont area in its place.

Since 2015, the Black Swamp Conservancy has been working on this area called Redhorse Bend along the Sandusky River just off of the SR 6 bypass.

The Sandusky County Parks District had signed a memorandum with the conservancy in 2017 to take ownership of the land if it was ever rehabilitated back to natural prairie and wetlands.

"You can see that that farmland was constantly underwater, the crops were always in trouble. There was hardly a year where there wasn't at least some crop damage due to flooding in that area," Sandusky County Parks District Director Andrew Brown said. "So, that was something targeted by the Black Swamp Conservancy a long time ago."

Now with the work complete, the parks district has taken ownership of the 93 acres at Redhorse Bend with intentions of adding a potential boardwalk, observation tower, walking paths and native pollinators.

Brown says it's going to be about another year until they finish the engineering design for Redhorse Bend.

Credit: Jon Monk
Redhorse Bend had been farmland for decades

He says the final product will look very similar to what they've already done at River Cliff Park on the south side of Fremont and this property was also donated by the Black Swamp Conservancy as well.

The work began in earnest after the Black Swamp Conservancy was awarded $900,000 in H2Ohio funding to clean up the area, as restoring native plants in the area will ultimately help improve Lake Erie water quality.

"It made a lot of sense for the flood waters to come up and come onto the property, and then the natural wetland vegetation would then filter the phosphorous and everything else out as much as possible before slowly releasing it back into the river then up into the lake," Brown said. "So that was the goal."

The park district hopes to have Redhorse Bend accessible within the next three to five years.

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