Ohio Sea Grant and the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern (AOC) Advisory Committee commemorated their latest milestone in restoring the Cuyahoga River with a celebration honoring the removal of the area’s sixth Beneficial Use Impairment (BUI).
The event, held at Edgewater Beach Park on Oct. 17, represented another major step in recovery for the Cuyahoga River AOC, one of 43 Great Lakes shoreline regions on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of Areas of Concern as established by the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
Attendees at this year’s celebration participated in a beach cleanup at Edgewater Beach in Cleveland.
The U.S. and Canada passed the agreement in 1972, requiring that the 43 most polluted sites throughout the Great Lakes, known as Areas of Concern, form local advisory committees to inform restoration priorities. Each committee identified significant problems at each site — Beneficial Use Impairments — that restrict waterway uses, present obstacles to healthy fish populations or degrade water quality.
The recently removed BUI focused on beach closings along the river, and its removal required meeting the ecological benchmark of beach closings on less than 10% of total days during the recreational season. The AOC has previously overseen successful removals of the BUIs for contamination levels in fish, persistent nuisance growth of algae, limitations on public river access, and fish tumors and deformities.
Through the celebration, the committee hoped to raise awareness and educate the public about the ecological wellbeing of the Cuyahoga River AOC and the progress being made toward its delisting as an AOC.
“Our goal is to suggest management actions to the Environmental Protection Agency that will restore the Cuyahoga River after years of contamination,” said Dr. Scott Hardy, Ohio Sea Grant extension educator and chair of education and outreach for the AOC advisory committee.
The City of Cuyahoga Falls was presented with the Champion of the River award during the event on Oct. 17.
During the celebration, preceded by a beach cleanup, the City of Cuyahoga Falls was presented with the Champion of the River award. The award honored their contribution to protecting the Cuyahoga River watershed.
“The City of Cuyahoga Falls has done a great job of creating public access and removing dams to help reduce contamination,” Hardy said. “They’ve really served as a model for other municipalities on how to grow with the river and create community development opportunities around the river instead of against it.”
The Cuyahoga River AOC Advisory Committee aims to oversee the removal of the four remaining BUIs by 2030.
Ohio Sea Grant is supported by The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) School of Environment and Natural Resources, Ohio State University Extension, and NOAA Sea Grant, a network of 34 Sea Grant programs nation-wide dedicated to the protection and sustainable use of marine and Great Lakes resources. Stone Laboratory is Ohio State’s island campus on Lake Erie and is the research, education, and outreach facility of Ohio Sea Grant and part of CFAES School of Environment and Natural Resources.