FY25 Lake Erie Protection Fund Grants Selected

The Lake Erie Protection Fund Grant supports vital projects that aim to protect and restore Lake Erie’s water quality, wildlife habitats, and overall ecosystem. Funded by the Lake Erie License Plate Program, these grants provide crucial resources for research, conservation, and restoration efforts across the lake and its watershed.

The Ohio Lake Erie Commission selected three proposals for funding for State Fiscal year 2025. Grants will be awarded to the following:

• $45,000 to Cleveland Metroparks for a Nature-Based Shoreline Planning Study. Cleveland Metroparks will review and prioritize waterfront sites throughout the Parks properties to identify sites that would benefit from living shorelines, coir logs, floating wetlands and/or other nature-based shoreline protection.

  $49,970 to Chagrin River Watershed Partners, Inc for a planning project focused on Reducing Nutrients to Ohio’s Central Lake Erie Basin. Chagrin River Watershed Partners will work with the Central Lake Erie Basin Collaborative to advance nutrient reductions projects by developing three new NPS-IS plans and update one additional plan.

  $50,000 to City of E. Cleveland for the Caledonia Ravine Restoration Planning and Design project. The City of E. Cleveland will collect baseline information, site specific conditions, and begin debris removal to develop a preliminary plan to target slope instability, erosions, high flows into Nine Mile Creek and support future urban park access for the local residents. 

Prior Grant Awardees

The Lake Erie Protection Fund Grant was awarded to the following applicants in 2024: 

• West Creek Conservancy $50,000 for the Grand River Casement Floodplain Restoration Project in Painesville, Ohio. The grant will support site assessments and development of concept plans to restore floodplain functionality at a former golf course, reduce high flow velocity, and increase sediment capture.
• City of Bay Village $50,000 for the Cahoon Park Lakefront Bay Point Final Engineering & Design. The grant will go towards developing engineering and designing plans for nature-based solutions for eroding shoreline, as part of a larger project in design at Cahoon Park.
• Ohio Sea Grant  $49,998 will go toward Assessing Marine Debris Prevention & Removal Technologies at marinas. The grant will help support three case studies, one marine debris workshop, five presentations and/or displays, and add marine debris prevention to the Ideal Clean Marine toolkit.