BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sometimes we happen to stumble upon a story. This one is a case of just that.

Along the Outer Harbor is Times Beach Nature Preserve. It’s nestled between Wilkeson Pointe and Buffalo Lighthouse Park. The men and women who protect it have their work cut out for them between Mother Nature and us.

What You Need To Know

  • Times Beach Nature Preserve is facing numerous contemporary shoreline issues

  • Historic seiches over the past five years have wreaked havoc on its shoreline

  • Plastic pollution is another big issue along the shoreline

  • Diving into Lake Erie, so is microplastic pollution per a study done by Dr. Sherri Mason 

The saying goes "don’t judge a book by its cover." The same goes for trails that look like any other.

At the nexus of Lake Erie, Niagara River and Buffalo River, a lot of wildlife makes it home.

“We have some wonderful trails,” said Jay Burney, executive director of the Pollinator Conservation Association. “We’ve had some issues with storm damage over the past couple of years, but we are recovering.”

Thriving if you will. But the damage done by historic seiches over the past five years still litters the ground.

“We’ve had six major seiches, this was the least of them,” Burney pointed.

Rising water is just one issue. Plastic pollution is another.

“All here and all along, you can’t walk without spreading the plastic,” Burney said.

He points to a 2012 study done by then-SUNY Fredonia Professor Dr. Sherri Mason. She found Lake Erie has more microplastic per inch than the great Pacific garbage patch.

“The issue of plastic pollution has only gotten worse since our initial study,” Mason said.

Plastic pollution is more than just the bottles we see on the beach.

“It’s microplastics that get into our blood, and our brains, and our lungs and our placental boundaries,” Mason said.

She says 60% of litter is unintentional, mainly because we don’t understand the products we are using. For example, compostable dog poop bags.

“They can just throw it down the storm drain and 'that’s OK,' and it’s not,” Mason said. “They don’t degrade in the environment; they degrade in industrial composting facilities.”

So why does Lake Erie have such a high concentration?

“What we see in Lake Erie isn’t just from people who live on Lake Erie, even though it is the most densely populated of the Great Lakes,” Mason said. “The plastic that’s in Lake Erie is coming from the flow of Lake Superior and Lake Huron.”

She adds that, even if you can’t see the lake from your front door, what you do affects you and your family.

“Every piece of plastic that we find in the environment ultimately comes from us,” Mason said.

Back at Times, brainstorming is underway to recreate a space to absorb the rise and fall of the lake and study the water pollution inside the broken dyke.

“If we understand how important this area is, it gives us more of an incentive on how to be better conservationists,” Burney said.

Mason has done numerous studies over the past decade on plastics and Great Lakes pollution. Her most recent, in 2020, was specifically on Lakes Erie and Ontario.