Great food for thought on the future of Dike 14, just north of MLK and Gordon Park on Cleveland's East Side...

 

http://www.wcpn.org/news/2005/04_06/0610dike14.html

 

Movement on Dike 14

 

Aired June 10, 2005

 

For years local bird-watching, conservation and environmental education groups have been clamoring for public access to Dike 14, a contained disposal facility for polluted sediments dredged from the Cuyahoga River near Gordon State Park. Now it looks like they’re finally going to get it. But as the city of Cleveland moves ahead with implementing its lakefront master plan for the 88-acre site, questions about the risks to humans and wildlife remain. ideastream's Karen Schaefer has the report.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y44/cbongorno/Dike14View.jpg

 

also check out:

http://www.balancedlivingmag.com/2005/January%20-%20February%202005/Dike%2014.htm

for context, from the City of Cleveland's Lakefront Plan pages:

 

one more perspective:

 

ummm...did i NOT provide enough pictures for you?  very sophomoric...

*EDITED BY ADMIN FOR CONTENT*

 

pretty mean-spirited, Cincy, if you ask me...

Please move this if the topic already exists!

 

Via the relaunched (and technically superior) version of greencitybluelake

http://www.gcbl.org/planning/lakefront/dike-14

 

The city has released a masterplan for the 88 acre cuyahoga river dredge disposal site, Dike 14.

 

Check it out at

http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/lakefront/dike14.html

This project has amazing potential for a city lacking "wild" natural spaces.  It could certainly be a great exposure to nature for all the students in Glenville, let alone the rest of the city.  Most inner city kids have little or no contact with wild lands.  While to a small degree manicured, this masterplan seems to do a great job of letting the land tell the story.

 

Hopefully this will signal a new willingness by Cleveland's Planning Commission to post relevant planning info online.

Hopefully this will signal a new willingness by Cleveland's Planning Commission to post relevant planning info online.

 

Amen to that! 

 

The summary and map are great.  I knew very little about this project and I came away feeling pretty up-to-speed.  This is a very exciting project and one that should bring us better access to our lakefront and nature in general, while continuing the expansion of our bike/ped trails.

Here's an aerial shot from last month ...

 

 

paul,

 

nice shot.  how did you get access to it?

How nice would a combined Gordon Park and Dike 14 be if the shoreway did not dissect the two??  Cleveland needs a Big Dig!

paul,

 

nice shot.  how did you get access to it?

 

Thanks!  Actually, I took the photo on approach to Hopkins while returning from a biz trip to Kansas City last month.  some more photos of downtown from that same landing approach are here:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=9142.0

Anyone go to this today. I went last year, but missed this one.

 

Former landfill hosts wildlife in urban setting

Public invited to observe Dike 14's transformation

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Tom Breckenridge

Plain Dealer Reporter

 

How could something so nasty be so glorious?

 

Article Removed

So they finally filled the missle silos in???  :)

It would be great to see a feasibility study for re establishing natural sand beaches along that stretch of coastline.

two 500 foot ships??  wow!

^^^I don't think the missle silos are in the Dike 14 area. Aren't they somewhere else?

 

^^I study was done done. You can't "re" establish something that was not there. But there was talk some time ago about creating a new beach along the dike... $$$$

 

^I was surprised about the ships too. That's crazy. It would interesting to get some ground penetrating radar to take some images of the dike.

How long before archeologists decide to dig those ships up?

Musky, I mean "re establish" in a broader sense, since before so called "improvements" most of the city had wide sandy beaches. 

 

p.s. my friend in Baltimore is the one who did the study- I just found this out and you're right about $$$$. But I think if someone could calculate just how much beach erosion and sand loss have adversely affected the economy, it could show good reason for future investment. 

Understood.

But I do not think that portion of the city ever had much in the way of beaches. I'll look around at some of my old maps.

Does your friend work at Biohabitats, Inc? They were the consultants that did the last planning study for the dike in 2005 along with Kerr + Boron Associates, DLZ, Consultating Engineers, Hull and Associates, and KS Associates.

 

See below:

 

 

 

However, Cleveland's Waterfront Plan does call for beaches near the dike. (see below)

Again, that is many dollars away from being reality.

 

 

I like the proposed giant land mound.

cleveland.com:

 

Meetings on Dike 14 pollution review are Wednesday, Thursday

Posted by Wally Guenther November 30, 2007 21:11PM

Categories: Breaking News, FYI

 

Article Removed

There is hardly any contamination on the Dike (I've seen the studies). They will build one simple all-purpose track on the island that will go to the western "beak". There might be some other dirt paths. The idea is to keep the entire place like a prairie so that the birds will continue to flock to the place.

yay for the new beach. it all looks good. whats the timeline for this part of the waterfront plan to be completed? thx.

^ About 20 years for all three phases I believe (west, east, downtown)

aside from the whole schmear, i meant just for the dike part area. has that been determined?

 

also, is there any money being arranged to do this $4.6m park yet?

 

very exciting if they can git'r done.

There is hardly any contamination on the Dike (I've seen the studies). They will build one simple all-purpose track on the island that will go to the western "beak". There might be some other dirt paths. The idea is to keep the entire place like a prairie so that the birds will continue to flock to the place.

 

Um, guys, the beach and all that stuff is not going to happen. The one simple multipurpose trail is the only thing that is being planned. The idea is to keep it natural.

Dike 14 has seemed like a waste from the start in my opinion.  Why add land to your shoreline just to turn it into a grassy meadow.  In my mind this project is a bust whether it happens or not.

^The dike was not designed as a public amenity, it was a dumping place for the dredgings from the mighty [shallow] Cuyahoga.  The new park is just an incidental amenity, which sounds pretty cool to me.  There isn't very much natural shoreline left, certainly not in the city, so it should be a pretty unique spot.  Ironic that we only have it because we built it.

^^It was never a project. The Army Corps of Engineers had to dump the dredgings somewhere, so they decided to put it there. Its not like they dredged the river just so they could add some acreage to the shoreline.

The Dike 14 Nature Preserve was never planned for recreational uses as was stated before. The dredging from the Cuyahoga River and the Cleveland port were deposited on this site. This happened after they found that the dredging were contaminated and could no longer just dump them in open water. They constructed this dike to keep the water clean, do you still think that it is a waist of money now.

 

Once the dike was completed nature took over the site. No many species of mammals and birds call this place home. With Cleveland sprawling more and more every year The Animal need some where to go and they have called Dike 14 their home for now.

 

I think we need some where for nature to exist undisturbed, unfortunately we don't have enough real estate on the lake in proximity to downtown but I think the dike should stay undeveloped as a nature preserve.

 

Nature did not take over completely. The Dike was seeded with many of the plants that thrive there now. I use to have pictures of the dike before there was any plant life on it, but cannot find them now.

I agree, an abundance of the current plant life has grown due in part by birds, wind and so on, but it was not entirely Mother Nature taking back what rightly belongs to her.