River's banks support failing

Thursday, December 08, 2005

By KEN PRENDERGAST

West Side Sun News

 

Hoping to head off a potential crisis with failing bulkheads along the edges of the Cuyahoga River, the Flats Oxbow Association is devoting much of its annual meeting today to the bulkhead issue.

The bulkheads are the association's primary concern because they support the river's banks and, in some cases, hillsides and buildings above them.

 

Also, a significant failure of bulkheading could block the river, shut down commercial river traffic and isolate some industries from low-cost water transport. Most of the bulkheads were installed in the 1930s as part of a federal Works Progress Administration project and are showing their age.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, repairing or replacing the bulkheads, costing perhaps $1,500 to $5,000 per linear foot, is the responsibility of property owners along the river. Also part of their responsibility is preparing designs and seeking building permits for new or repaired bulkheads.

 

More at http://www.cleveland.com/sun/westsidesunnews/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1134064104121270.xml&coll=3

Wow...thats all i can say.  $142M mimimum. 

 

 

eople don't realize there are fish in the river. When the water gets warm in the spring, the fish float to the surface. You can almost walk across the river on them.

 

I hope he doesn't mean they are dead!

 

 

 

Thanks for posting it, but I noticed some text was missing after the second quote from Brandstatter of the Coast Guard....

 

There are many types of bulkheads and, in some cases, an earthen embankment will suffice when there is no hillside, large building or piles of stored materials near the river's edge, said Brad Gey, project manager for Army Corps of Engineers' Buffalo District.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/sun/westsidesunnews/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1134064104121270.xml&coll=3

The good folks at the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative (CVI) http://www.cuyahogavalley.net  are working with the folks at the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan http://www.cuyahogariverrap.org    to craft a new type of bulkhead that will enable, rather than inhibit, fish habitat.  It could very well be the first such design in the country/world which would make it marketable to other  areas.

The Feds awarded CVI $500K for the greenbulkheads project late last year.

http://planning.co.cuyahoga.oh.us/about/minutes0512.html

 

Because of a dredged depth of 20+ feet and corrugated steel walls, the Cuyahoga is very inhospitable to aquatic life.  The green bulkheads would offer the same soil retention function while concurrently providing temporary habitat (safe place) for fish moving up or downstream.  The first prototype is planned for installation in the late fall of this year.  It may also feature some sort of pocket wetland.

 

While I believe this is all fine and dandy and may too much to restore biological life to the last 2 miles of the Cuyahoga while providing a possible revenue stream from the exportation of new technology, I wonder if there isn't a simpler solution.

 

When/if the Port is moved off the riverfront and on an artificial island on the lakefront, as proposed by the new Lakefront Masterplan, why not connect the industries that use the cargo via rail instead of dredged canal?  At the minimum this would eliminate the need to dredge the river to a 20' depth twice per year.  By letting the river lose some of its depth, levels of dissolved oxygen (critical for fishies) would increase as flow rate increased.  Many of the bulkheads would no longer be necessary and the river could again have natural banks, some of which would be natural wetlands (nature's water purifier)

 

Pie in the Sky or Possibility?

 

I imagine many of you will lament the removal of giant ore boats from the lower Cuyahoga.  I would maintain that it is for the greater good.............. 

My understanding is that the Cuyahoga naturally doesn't flow very well.  It clogs itself with silt.  It would become stagnant and could breed things like mosquitos, and it would probably develop a stench.  So it probably is not desirable to let it revert to it's natural state. 

 

Also, I am not sure how much of the banks would have to be reverted to natural banks, and how that would impact development.

Thanks Guv. The green bulkhead design is very forward thinking. It will certainly be a challenge in the future trying to correct many years of ecological abuse.

Green' bulkheads are planners' vision

Saturday, November 11, 2006

John C. Kuehner

Plain Dealer Reporter

 

Planners want to launch a project that will explore whether fish and ore boats can coexist on the Cuyahoga River.

 

What they want to create is a stream bank that offers habitat for fish migrating from Lake Erie to spawning areas upriver while also allowing for ship movement.

 

But the vision goes beyond just helping restore the health of the Cuyahoga River.

 

More at

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/116323759542800.xml&coll=2

A) That's a very cool pic of the city... a perspective I don't think I've seen yet.

 

B) I really like the idea that we can build our economy with this project in a multitude of ways.  Good foresight from the folks behind this effort.  Let's hope we can see it through!

From WCPN:

 

 

Mittal Steel Donation May Help Water Quality

Aired June 5, 2007

 

Mittal Steel has donated $30,000 and a stretch of river bank for the development of new prototype bulkheads that could help improve water quality in the Cuyahoga River Channel. ideastream's Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports.

 

Part of Mittal's donation will go toward creating a new kind of bulkhead designers say will grow plants and provide habitat for fish. The Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization is seeking to raise a total of $125,000 for the project. It's hoped the new bulkheads can replace the current aging corrugated steel plates used to shore up land along the Cuyahoga River leading to the port. Shoreline along the river needs to be protected from large ships but the steel bulkheads prevent plants from growing. The Green Bulkheads would solve that problem, says the group's outreach coordinator Jane Goodman.

 

 

More at:

http://www.wcpn.org/mp3/2007/06/0605green.mp3

Cuyahoga project aims to encourage fish growth

June 9, 2007 | ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

CLEVELAND - Environmentalists hope to increase the fish population in the Cuyahoga River through the construction of new retaining walls in the shipping channel.

 

The bulkheads would be designed with pockets where plants can grow and fish can find refuge as they swim to and from Lake Erie.

 

"The ship channel is the gateway to the Cuyahoga River, and sometimes it is a hard and hostile place for baby fish to make it downstream," said James White, executive director of the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan, an environmental group. "The bulkheads will allow commercial shipping but will also allow habitat friendly pockets where fish can grow."

 

More at www.ap.org

That's cool AP picked up the story.

From Crain's (there's a video too):

 

Fish 'n ships (did they bring over some title editors from the PD???)

The Green Bulkhead Project brings together government, nonprofits and business to re-establish fish and plants in the lower Cuyahoga River.

By DAN SHINGLER

 

1:12 pm, August 29, 2008

 

Soon, quarter-inch fish and 700-foot freighters may peacefully coexist in the same waters of the Cuyahoga River, thanks to an invention called a “CHUB” and a public-private partnership between Cuyahoga County, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and industrial companies, such as ArcelorMittal USA.

 

CHUB stands for Cuyahoga Habitat Underwater Baskets. About 400 of them are being installed along the bulkheads that line the last 5½ miles of the river, where it ceases to be a moving natural environment that supports plants and fish and becomes a deep, still and nearly lifeless channel for huge freighters.

 

More at crainscleveland.com http://www.crainscleveland.com

You can see about 40 of them on either side of the Cuyahoga, just downriver from the Center Street Bridge.  To view the CHUBs up close, the best view is directly behind the Flats Oxbow offices.

 

We're testing ten different varieties of native wetland plants.  It seems that the broadleaved arrow arum are doing best, but it's only been about a week for most of the CHUBs.

"To view the CHUBs up close, the best view is directly behind the Flats Oxbow offices."

 

Annnnd, that would be where? :-)

"To view the CHUBs up close, the best view is directly behind the Flats Oxbow offices."

 

Annnnd, that would be where? :-)

 

D'oh!

 

1283 Riverbed Street, West Bank of the Flats

Using the natural methods of 'biomimicry' to fix Cleveland's Cuyahoga River

By Michael Scott

December 28, 2009, 8:45AM

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Maybe biomimicry can finish saving the Cuyahoga.

The new, nature-inspired engineering could be the source of environmental improvements to the river that runs through Cleveland -- especially in the biologically challenged, steel-lined shipping channel.

 

That someday is already dawning, some key river advocates say.

 

Biomimicry is the fast-growing field in which engineers, artists and designers are drawing more and more from natural examples of successful adaptations to solve human problems.

 

More at:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/12/using_the_natural_methods_of_b.html

^Good stuff.  The steel bulkheads are also kind of hideous, so I look forward to any alternatives these folks come up with.

Anyone know what the status of replacing bulkheads fall on the Corps of Engineers priorities?  Are we scheduled for major reconstruction of them any time soon?

Simarily related — please move if there is a more appropriate thread: