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EPA wants to remove structure on Cuyahoga; historic canal an issue
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Wednesday, Oct 28, 2009
The National Park Service and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public meeting tonight on a proposal to modify or remove a dam on the Cuyahoga River near state Route 82 between Sagamore Hills Township and Brecksville.
The meeting to get public input will be from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Happy Days Lodge off state Route 303 in Boston Heights.
The two agencies will work together to draft a detailed Environmental Impact Statement on the effects of modifying or removing the state-owned dam that is 183 feet long and nearly 8 feet high. The structure, built in 1951, also funnels water into the nearby Ohio & Erie Canal.
Completing the study on the Canal Diversion Dam — also called the Brecksville Dam or the Station Road Dam — will take two years or longer to complete.
Cooperating on the project will be the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which owns the dam, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The EPA would like to see the dam removed because of its negative impact on Cuyahoga River water quality.
The park service wants to continue to divert water from the river to feed the historic canal. The watered portion of the canal is a National Historic Landmark.
The canal needs 12.9 million gallons a day from the Cuyahoga River in order to remain watered.
Three options are under study: no action, modifying the dam while providing water to the canal, and removing the dam while watering the canal.
There is no preferred alternative at this time, said park ecologist Kevin Skerl.
The project is in the spotlight because the city of Akron and the U.S. Justice Department last week announced a possible settlement of a federal lawsuit against the city for its combined sewers.
As part of the agreement, the city of Akron will provide $900,000 for the possible modification-removal of the state Route 82 dam at the behest of the U.S. EPA.
Terms of the settlement are not final.
Elaine Marsh of the Friends of the Crooked River, a grass-roots group devoted to the Cuyahoga River, is excited that Akron intends to fund the state Route 82 dam project.
''It's the perfect project for Akron because doing it will ensure that the Cuyahoga River will be fishable — as it is supposed to be under the federal Clean Water Act,'' she said.
''It will be a great thing for the river. It's a good and positive thing. . . . There's a really bright light for the Cuyahoga River at the end of the process,'' she said.
The removal of the Kent dam and the lowering of the Munroe Falls dam have shown that water quality on the Cuyahoga River for fish can improve significantly in a very short period of time, Marsh said.
The latest Ohio EPA testing showed that the state Route 82 dam had an adverse effect on fish and aquatic insects from the dam itself south for 7.8 miles along the Cuyahoga River to Boston Mills Road in Boston Township.
Those tests showed that for the first time, most of the 47 miles of the river from Lake Rockwell north of Kent through Akron to Harvard Avenue in Cleveland met EPA's standards for fish and aquatic insects.
The number of fish species had increased to the point where the river gets full attainment of what is called a ''warmwater habitat'' designation. That's been the goal for decades.
In 2003, the Ohio EPA reported that the dam had a negative impact on that section of the Cuyahoga River. The dam removal-modification was explored further with 2005 public meetings.
A notice that an Environmental Impact Study was being pursued was published in July in the Federal Register, long before Akron made its sewer announcement.
Marsh's group has been looking at making changes to the state Route 82 dam since 2006 as part of a stakeholders group that includes the National Park Service, the Ohio EPA, Cleveland Metroparks and the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan.
That's when Friends of the Crooked River got $120,000 as a supplemental environmental project involving a state lawsuit against Green Circle Growers Inc. The company, based in Oberlin in Lorain County, pleaded guilty in February 2005 to environmental violations including stream pollution.
The money was used by the grass-roots group to analyze various options for what might be done at the state Route 82 dam to satisfy the Ohio EPA and the park service, Marsh said.
That included a report on alternative flow options by Christopher Miller, a University of Akron associate professor of civil engineering, and a hydrologic analysis of the river, canal and nearby Chippewa Creek by Arcadis, an engineering firm with an office in Akron.
Documents on the project are available at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/cuva.
Comments on the project can be submitted through Nov. 28.
Written comments can be sent to: Superintendent, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, 15610 Vaughn Road, Brecksville, OH 44141.
For more information, contact Bill Zawiski of the EPA at 330-963-1134 or Meg Plona of the park service at 330-342-0764, ext. 2.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
The National Park Service and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public meeting tonight on a proposal to modify or remove a dam on the Cuyahoga River near state Route 82 between Sagamore Hills Township and Brecksville.
The meeting to get public input will be from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Happy Days Lodge off state Route 303 in Boston Heights.
The two agencies will work together to draft a detailed Environmental Impact Statement on the effects of modifying or removing the state-owned dam that is 183 feet long and nearly 8 feet high. The structure, built in 1951, also funnels water into the nearby Ohio & Erie Canal.
Completing the study on the Canal Diversion Dam — also called the Brecksville Dam or the Station Road Dam — will take two years or longer to complete.
Cooperating on the project will be the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which owns the dam, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The EPA would like to see the dam removed because of its negative impact on Cuyahoga River water quality.
The park service wants to continue to divert water from the river to feed the historic canal. The watered portion of the canal is a National Historic Landmark.
The canal needs 12.9 million gallons a day from the Cuyahoga River in order to remain watered.
Three options are under study: no action, modifying the dam while providing water to the canal, and removing the dam while watering the canal.
There is no preferred alternative at this time, said park ecologist Kevin Skerl.
The project is in the spotlight because the city of Akron and the U.S. Justice Department last week announced a possible settlement of a federal lawsuit against the city for its combined sewers.
As part of the agreement, the city of Akron will provide $900,000 for the possible modification-removal of the state Route 82 dam at the behest of the U.S. EPA.
Terms of the settlement are not final.
Elaine Marsh of the Friends of the Crooked River, a grass-roots group devoted to the Cuyahoga River, is excited that Akron intends to fund the state Route 82 dam project.
''It's the perfect project for Akron because doing it will ensure that the Cuyahoga River will be fishable — as it is supposed to be under the federal Clean Water Act,'' she said.
''It will be a great thing for the river. It's a good and positive thing. . . . There's a really bright light for the Cuyahoga River at the end of the process,'' she said.
The removal of the Kent dam and the lowering of the Munroe Falls dam have shown that water quality on the Cuyahoga River for fish can improve significantly in a very short period of time, Marsh said.
The latest Ohio EPA testing showed that the state Route 82 dam had an adverse effect on fish and aquatic insects from the dam itself south for 7.8 miles along the Cuyahoga River to Boston Mills Road in Boston Township.
Those tests showed that for the first time, most of the 47 miles of the river from Lake Rockwell north of Kent through Akron to Harvard Avenue in Cleveland met EPA's standards for fish and aquatic insects.
The number of fish species had increased to the point where the river gets full attainment of what is called a ''warmwater habitat'' designation. That's been the goal for decades.
In 2003, the Ohio EPA reported that the dam had a negative impact on that section of the Cuyahoga River. The dam removal-modification was explored further with 2005 public meetings.
A notice that an Environmental Impact Study was being pursued was published in July in the Federal Register, long before Akron made its sewer announcement.
Marsh's group has been looking at making changes to the state Route 82 dam since 2006 as part of a stakeholders group that includes the National Park Service, the Ohio EPA, Cleveland Metroparks and the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan.
That's when Friends of the Crooked River got $120,000 as a supplemental environmental project involving a state lawsuit against Green Circle Growers Inc. The company, based in Oberlin in Lorain County, pleaded guilty in February 2005 to environmental violations including stream pollution.
The money was used by the grass-roots group to analyze various options for what might be done at the state Route 82 dam to satisfy the Ohio EPA and the park service, Marsh said.
That included a report on alternative flow options by Christopher Miller, a University of Akron associate professor of civil engineering, and a hydrologic analysis of the river, canal and nearby Chippewa Creek by Arcadis, an engineering firm with an office in Akron.
Documents on the project are available at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/cuva.
Comments on the project can be submitted through Nov. 28.
Written comments can be sent to: Superintendent, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, 15610 Vaughn Road, Brecksville, OH 44141.
For more information, contact Bill Zawiski of the EPA at 330-963-1134 or Meg Plona of the park service at 330-342-0764, ext. 2.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
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Akron, Oh
Posted 07:40 AM, 10/28/2009
After that one is down it is time to remove the Ohio Edison one in the Falls as well....let the river run through as intended and they will come ...
