Sedimentality: sediment landscapes, socio-politics, and the environment in the lower Detroit River

Abstract

Sedimentation and dredging are two sides of the same coin; dredged landscapes are sediment landscapes, especially in the Great Lakes. Confined Disposal Facilities (CDFs)—often large dikes and/or islands full of dredged sediment—dot the Great Lakes landscapes as nearshore, onshore, offshore, submerged, and island sites. Some CDF islands are completely manmade while others were developed by depositing dredge spoils on original river islands. This article argues that new landscapes created through dredging in the Great Lakes were not static—in space, time, and public imagination—even if they were perceived to be so by experts, engineers, and even politicians. One specific sediment landscape, the Crystal Bay and Crystal Island in the lower Detroit River, was created out of material dredged to make a more efficient shipping channel. In the 1970s, there was a proposal to further augment the dredged landscape and open Crystal Bay and Crystal Island to public use. The move was met with stiff resistance in Canada, where the island and bay had ironically become a sentimental symbol of ‘nature.’ The bay and island are also bi-national, straddling the international border between the United States and Canada, and thus make dredged landscapes an issue of international diplomacy. Through the experience of the Crystal Bay and island, this paper argues that understanding the socio-political histories of these sediment landscapes is imperative to better understanding the entanglement of science and technology, with river systems and social dynamics.