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By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 07:02 a.m. EDT, May 12, 2009
CLEVELAND: Something new has come to the Cuyahoga River: underwater snacks for fish.
Last August and September, about 315 plant-filled rubber baskets were attached to the steel bulkheads or retaining walls that line the Cuyahoga River's banks for 5.6 miles through the industrialized Flats area.
The baskets, called CHUBs or Cuyahoga Habitat Underwater Baskets, are designed to provide mini-habitats with food and energy for young fish like smallmouth bass and steelhead trout trying to make their way back to Lake Erie through the Shipping Channel.
The baskets serve as ''watery Howard Johnson restaurants for the larval fish,'' said James White, executive director of the Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization.
His agency, along with the Cuyahoga County commissioners, funded the project with $250,000 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The baskets, suspended by chains from the steel walls, are filled with 21 species of native plants. A few species have proven too fragile and some are too tasty for Canada geese, he said.
The baskets — each can hold 75 to 100 pounds of plants — are suspended at different heights, from water line to 3 feet deep. The plants' roots grow out of the bottom of the baskets to provide some below-the-surface shelter.
The baskets are tucked in recesses in the sheet steel bulkheads and are out of the way of boats.
The plants, in patented mesh bags (called plant pillows) and growing medium to discourage carp and geese, were hung in five areas along the river, especially at the southern end of the channel near the ArcelorMittal steel plant.
The system was tested in 2007-08 and showed great promise, White said.
Environmentalists said they are impressed at first blush by the innovative project.
''I really like the low-tech aspect of it,'' said Elaine Marsh of Bath Township, head of the grass-roots group Friends of the Crooked River, which is active in Cuyahoga River affairs.
''It is very interesting and very promising and would be an inexpensive solution for fish passage, if it works.''
The problem is there is virtually no food or shelter for fish in the armored Shipping Channel, White said.
A 2002 study indicated that many fish ascended the Cuyahoga River from Lake Erie and spawned, but the young fish had major trouble surviving the trip back to Lake Erie, he said.
They needed food and shelter that was unavailable in the Shipping Channel, where the river was deepened from 6 feet to 23 feet for ore boats and freighters.
In addition, temperatures rise and oxygen levels sink in that section of the river. Pollutants stay longer in the river channel.
Up to 40 species of fish typically are found in the Shipping Channel and the rest of the Cuyahoga River.
The current in the Shipping Channel is nonexistent, so the young fish must expend energy trying to reach Lake Erie, White said. ''It is a calorie thing,'' he said.
''We were, in effect, not supporting the entire life cycle of the fish in the Shipping Channel, and that had to change.''
That got the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with the Cuyahoga River RAP, looking at options to help the tiny fish.
For the new system to work, the plants must prove they can grow and the fish must show up, White said.
Tiny larval fish were found in the Cuyahoga River last year after the baskets were installed, so it appears that they are working, he said.
More monitoring will be done this year to determine how effective the baskets are, White said.
He and others are looking far beyond CHUBs to creating greener and inexpensive bulkheads along the Cuyahoga River that will create jobs in Northeast Ohio.
Cleveland has 11 miles of bulkheads, most of which were built in the 1930s, and steel and wooden walls are aging and in need of repair, he said. The repairs could cost as much as $300 million.
Whatever remedy is developed in Cleveland could be used in 130 other Great Lake ports, White said.
That led to the creation in 2004 of the Cuyahoga Lake Erie Environmental Restoration Technology Enterprise Center, which is looking at the bulkhead problem.
Possible solutions include building small pockets of wetlands on riverside land, with openings in the bulkhead to allow fish access, or tiered walls by broadening the river and building smaller bulkheads in the widened area, White said.
ArcelorMittal has donated one acre in the Flats area north of the Steelyard Commons shopping center and under the Interstate 490 bridge to test environmentally friendly bulkheads. No tests have yet been conducted.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
CLEVELAND: Something new has come to the Cuyahoga River: underwater snacks for fish.
Last August and September, about 315 plant-filled rubber baskets were attached to the steel bulkheads or retaining walls that line the Cuyahoga River's banks for 5.6 miles through the industrialized Flats area.
The baskets, called CHUBs or Cuyahoga Habitat Underwater Baskets, are designed to provide mini-habitats with food and energy for young fish like smallmouth bass and steelhead trout trying to make their way back to Lake Erie through the Shipping Channel.
The baskets serve as ''watery Howard Johnson restaurants for the larval fish,'' said James White, executive director of the Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization.
His agency, along with the Cuyahoga County commissioners, funded the project with $250,000 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The baskets, suspended by chains from the steel walls, are filled with 21 species of native plants. A few species have proven too fragile and some are too tasty for Canada geese, he said.
The baskets — each can hold 75 to 100 pounds of plants — are suspended at different heights, from water line to 3 feet deep. The plants' roots grow out of the bottom of the baskets to provide some below-the-surface shelter.
The baskets are tucked in recesses in the sheet steel bulkheads and are out of the way of boats.
The plants, in patented mesh bags (called plant pillows) and growing medium to discourage carp and geese, were hung in five areas along the river, especially at the southern end of the channel near the ArcelorMittal steel plant.
The system was tested in 2007-08 and showed great promise, White said.
Environmentalists said they are impressed at first blush by the innovative project.
''I really like the low-tech aspect of it,'' said Elaine Marsh of Bath Township, head of the grass-roots group Friends of the Crooked River, which is active in Cuyahoga River affairs.
''It is very interesting and very promising and would be an inexpensive solution for fish passage, if it works.''
The problem is there is virtually no food or shelter for fish in the armored Shipping Channel, White said.
A 2002 study indicated that many fish ascended the Cuyahoga River from Lake Erie and spawned, but the young fish had major trouble surviving the trip back to Lake Erie, he said.
They needed food and shelter that was unavailable in the Shipping Channel, where the river was deepened from 6 feet to 23 feet for ore boats and freighters.
In addition, temperatures rise and oxygen levels sink in that section of the river. Pollutants stay longer in the river channel.
Up to 40 species of fish typically are found in the Shipping Channel and the rest of the Cuyahoga River.
The current in the Shipping Channel is nonexistent, so the young fish must expend energy trying to reach Lake Erie, White said. ''It is a calorie thing,'' he said.
''We were, in effect, not supporting the entire life cycle of the fish in the Shipping Channel, and that had to change.''
That got the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with the Cuyahoga River RAP, looking at options to help the tiny fish.
For the new system to work, the plants must prove they can grow and the fish must show up, White said.
Tiny larval fish were found in the Cuyahoga River last year after the baskets were installed, so it appears that they are working, he said.
More monitoring will be done this year to determine how effective the baskets are, White said.
He and others are looking far beyond CHUBs to creating greener and inexpensive bulkheads along the Cuyahoga River that will create jobs in Northeast Ohio.
Cleveland has 11 miles of bulkheads, most of which were built in the 1930s, and steel and wooden walls are aging and in need of repair, he said. The repairs could cost as much as $300 million.
Whatever remedy is developed in Cleveland could be used in 130 other Great Lake ports, White said.
That led to the creation in 2004 of the Cuyahoga Lake Erie Environmental Restoration Technology Enterprise Center, which is looking at the bulkhead problem.
Possible solutions include building small pockets of wetlands on riverside land, with openings in the bulkhead to allow fish access, or tiered walls by broadening the river and building smaller bulkheads in the widened area, White said.
ArcelorMittal has donated one acre in the Flats area north of the Steelyard Commons shopping center and under the Interstate 490 bridge to test environmentally friendly bulkheads. No tests have yet been conducted.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
Akron, OH
Posted 11:24 PM, 05/11/2009
More rubber in the river... YAAY!
Wait we need to perserve the fish for their swim back to lake erie so they can be eaten by lamprey in the worlds largest stocked pond...
Give me a quarter million and I'll do it better, more extensive, using non-toxic materials, and faster. It's a question of work ethic.
Norka, Oh
Posted 09:35 AM, 05/12/2009
Is this river is so polluted that the fish are growing hands ??
Posted 02:01 PM, 05/12/2009
Is this river is so polluted that the fish are growing hands ??
Yes. Evolution took millions of years to do what e Cuyahoga River pollution did in a few decades. Pretty soon, the fish people will take over the flats.
