Construction has been completed on the new Sterling Nature Center and Resiliency Education Building, located along two miles of Lake Ontario shoreline in Cayuga County. The Sterling Nature Center includes a public nature preserve and conservation area owned and operated by Cayuga County that encompasses more than 1,400 acres of land in the town of Sterling.
The newly built interpretive center is hoped to improve tourism and promote environmental education in the region.
The Sterling Nature Center is the largest nature preserve in the nine-county Central New York Region, with a service area that includes nearly 600,000 residents. It combines more than nine miles of trails and lake views from bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario.
The free nature center, open every day from dawn to dusk, features about 10 miles of well-marked trails. During the winter season, the trails are open to cross country skiing, snow shoeing, and hiking and include designated trails for snowmobiling.
Dogs are permitted on the grounds but must be kept on a leash, and animal waste must be removed. Swimming, hunting, and camping are prohibited within the nature center.
Record high Lake Ontario water levels and extreme rainfall events have damaged or destroyed trails along the shoreline of the Sterling Nature Center. To address stormwater issues that have degraded trails and negatively impacted visitor experience, and to ensure continued access, the county was awarded $804,500 in grant funding for a second project, that is currently in construction.
Mitigation measures to be implemented in the Sterling Nature Center Trail project include:
- Green infrastructure to better manage stormwater, including a permeable pavement in the parking stalls of the parking area, sidewalks, rain gardens, and wetlands;
- Educational exhibits and programming related to green infrastructure; and
- Repairing and rerouting approximately four miles of hiking trails, including Dogwood, Lakeview, Heron, Bluff, Buttonbush, and Lake Trail by reestablishing trails lost to bluff erosion, installing board walks to bridge chronically wet or flooded sections of trails due to the increase in severe storm events and mulching previously untreated trail surfaces to decrease soil erosion in areas that have suffered washouts from more frequent storm events.
Cayuga County was awarded $3.2 million in grant funding through New York State’s Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative (REDI) to complete the project.
In response to the extended pattern of flooding along the shores of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, New York State established REDI to increase the resilience of shoreline communities and bolster economic development in the region.
Five REDI Regional Planning Committees, comprised of representatives from eight counties (Niagara and Orleans, Monroe, Wayne, Cayuga and Oswego, and Jefferson and St. Lawrence) were established to identify local priorities, at-risk infrastructure and other assets, and public safety concerns.
Through REDI, the State has committed up to $300 million, to benefit communities and improve resiliency in regions along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.
Since the creation of the State’s REDI program in the Spring of 2019, 134 REDI funded local and regional projects are underway, including 26 projects in the design phase, 23 projects in the construction phase, and 85 projects completed.
For additional information, project profiles and REDI news, click here.
Photo: View of Lake Ontario from the Sterling Nature Center lands (2023).
