A scientific organization is highlighting 10 places where cleanups of heavily polluted areas have spurred community and economic revitalization.
The International Association for Great Lakes Research said the areas include the Detroit River and Toronto's Lake Ontario waterfront area.
Canada and the U.S. identified 43 areas of concern in the 1980s and the report suggests work still needs to be done on most of them.
The St. Clair River was originally designated in 1987 under the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
One of the remaining obstacles to the delisting of the waterway as an environmental hot spot is contaminated sediment along a nine-kilometre stretch of the riverbed from Sarnia to Stag Island.
A two-year detailed engineering and design phase for the removal of the sediment is getting underway.
It's part of the St. Clair Sediment Management Project.
The St. Clair Region Conservation Authority was granted $1 million in 2018 from the federal and provincial governments and Dow Canada for the engineering work.
Removing the sediment was estimated to cost more than $28 million in 2014.