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Park tries new tactics to keep towpath safe
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Jan 02, 2009
PENINSULA: The Cuyahoga River was threatening to undercut and wash away the popular Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.
After heavy rains, the river was filling an old canal channel and cutting into the bank next to the popular bike and hike trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
The National Park Service devised a new strategy to thwart the bank-eroding river and to keep the trail safe: a man-made logjam just north of Peninsula, said civil engineer Janet Popielski.
The pile of logs and rocks was built in 2006 by Quality Building System, an Alliance company, under a $230,000 contract with the park.
The engineered pile of logs, held together by cables, creates a natural dam that keeps the Cuyahoga River in its main channel and most water out of the side channel. That keeps the Towpath Trail safe. The eroded bank was then rebuilt.
Engineers are constantly battling the Cuyahoga River in order to protect the Towpath Trail, the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad and historical buildings and structures in the 33,000-acre park.
''It's a complicated problem when the park's cultural and natural resources collide,'' Popielski said.
In fact, it's a never-ending battle.
The Cuyahoga, nicknamed the ''Crooked River'' for its meanderings, cuts into banks and washes away dirt, creating conflicts between park officials and Mother Nature.
It is a problem that also involves county and municipal engineers when the Cuyahoga River and its side streams get too close to roadways in the Cuyahoga Valley.
It's a growing problem because development around the park is resulting in more water gushing into side streams that empty into the Cuyahoga River. That produces more erosion.
Riprap, or rocks, have been added to more than five miles of river banks in the park over the years to fight erosion.
Eliminating stream-bank erosion in the park would cost in excess of $100 million and is an undesirable solution, Popielski said.
Any park project is dependent on getting money from Congress, and money is tight, she said.
Green strategies
The Peninsula logjam is also part of a new effort by the park to develop more holistic and environment-friendly strategies to keep the stream banks from washing away.
The usual solution — riprap or small rocks — still will be needed to combat severe erosion problems along the Cuyahoga River, Popielski said.
But she is involved in a park initiative to find less-impacting solutions, such as
planting willows, creating wetlands and planting trees.
There is plenty of room in the Cuyahoga Valley for the river to meander, and that's good and healthy, said park ecologist Kevin Skerl.
The park is promoting tree planting on 150 acres of stream buffer areas within the park, he said. The first were planted along Stone Road in Independence to reduce erosion on a Cuyahoga River tributary, he said.
Trees will be planted this spring in a pilot project designed along Langes Run in Boston Township.
''Reforesting parts of the park is a good way to reduce stream-bank erosion,'' he said. ''Vegetation really helps. It controls erosion, slows the flow and traps sediments. It dries up the soil, too.''
That is a far cry from the days when junked cars were chained together to line the banks of the Cuyahoga River north of Peninsula.
There is evidence of 19th-century settlers to the Cuyahoga Valley placing quarried rock and wooden structures along the river to combat bank erosion.
Other means to harden the banks include the use of sheet metal, broken concrete, gabion baskets (rocks in wire baskets) and Reno mattresses (different-shaped rock-filled wire baskets).
Improving banks
In 2008, the Cuyahoga Valley park completed six stream bank-stabilization projects costing an estimated $664,000. Two additional projects are on the drawing boards, Popielski said.
They include a project to repair 500 feet of banks on the Cuyahoga River near the Towpath Trail in Sagamore Hills Township. Riprap was placed on the east bank across from Chippewa Creek and that was topped by soil.
A second project dealt with 120 feet of the Cuyahoga's eastern bank in the Pinery Narrows area north of state Route 82 in Sagamore Hills, she said.
North of the Red Lock Trailhead in Sagamore Hills, the park built a 400-foot trench with rocks. The trench is 8 feet wide and 10 feet deep and is within five feet of the approaching Cuyahoga River. The trench is expected to collapse when the river reaches it and dumps its rocks to stabilize the eroding bank.
Park crews also worked along the railroad near Furnace Run in Boston Township and at the Station Road Bridge Trailhead in Brecksville.
Riprap was installed on about 350 feet of Yellow Creek near Riverview and West Bath roads in Bath Township to protect the park-owned railroad tracks, said park engineer Rob Bobel.
The repairs were needed because the stream was encroaching on the railroad, he said.
The work began in late 2007 and was completed last spring by Quality Building System.
The built-up hillside along the creek on the west side of the tracks was planted in native grasses. A small wetland was also restored.
Summit County Engineer Greg Bachman's office also restored a canal-era culvert that carries the creek under the railroad tracks and Riverview Road.
Upcoming erosion-control projects include work at the park's Boston Store visitor center where the Cuyahoga River is within three feet of the parking lot in Boston Township and near the railroad track just south of the Ohio Turnpike bridge in Boston Township.
Past projects
To date, 68 bank-stabilization projects have been constructed over the years on the Cuyahoga River in the park.
Since 1992, the park service has completed 30 Cuyahoga bank projects that together cover 2.45 miles of bank, Popielski said.
In addition, 38 other bank projects covering 2.72 miles of banks were done by nonpark agencies, Popielski said.
A total of 22 miles of the Cuyahoga River and 44 miles of stream banks lie within the federal park.
A few emergency bank repairs may have been done prior to 1992, but that's when work began on building the Towpath Trail and the park became more involved, said Popielski, who canoes along the Cuyahoga to check bank trouble spots.
Since 1997, she has been monitoring sites along the river in the park once or twice a year to gauge how fast the erosion is moving toward park features. A few sites on tributaries have been added. She has 30 sites today.
The loss of a few inches of bank per year is considered normal and acceptable, she said.
In addition to the distance between the water and park features, Popielski looks for other signs of bank erosion: undercut and leaning trees, cracks in the bank, disappearing bank vegetation and uneven sections on the Towpath Trail.
Those spots get a high priority ranking if the bank is within 10 feet of park features and moving at the speed of one-foot per year.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
PENINSULA: The Cuyahoga River was threatening to undercut and wash away the popular Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Akron, OH
Posted 07:17 AM, 01/02/2009
I'm all for lettin' mother nature have her way, therefore savin' millions in tax dollars that could go to projects that benefit more people.
Akron, , OH
Posted 09:41 AM, 01/02/2009
I'm all for saying " fools and their tax dollars soon part"
2009 will be so fine...
