Living Laboratory at The Ridges

Visitors to The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor can soon view ways they can improve water quality while attracting more birds and butterflies to their homes and businesses.

Thanks to a $75,000 grant from the Fund for Lake Michigan, The Ridges will showcase rain gardens, native plantings and other storm water management practices as part of a “Living Laboratory” at its new Cook-Albert Fuller Nature Center.

Ridges Director Steve Leonard said the grant will help pay for the demonstration project at the nature center while also educating the public about what they can do to improve Lake Michigan water quality.

“We know that many tourists who come to Door County care deeply about the environment,” said Leonard. “This grant will allow us to show them ways to help right in their own backyard.”

The grant is one of 27 projects sharing in $1.9 million in support this year from the Fund for Lake Michigan, a Milwaukee‐based philanthropic group backed by We Energies and WPPI energy. “The Ridges project hits two of our goals at once,” said Vicki Elkin, executive director the Fund for Lake Michigan. “It will help control runoff into the lake but will also educate the public about what they can do themselves.”

The grant will also help Ridges restore 16‐acres surrounding the new center which includes a two‐acre brown field that has been leaching kerosene from past fish boils into the groundwater and Lake Michigan, explained Leonard.

“There are plenty of great restaurants, shops and galleries in Door County but Lake Michigan is still the main reason people love the area,” Leonard said. “Anything we can do to improve water quality is a bonus.”