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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. What planners hope to design is a new generation of inexpensive stream-bank curbs that can be manufactured in the Cuyahoga Valley and create jobs here.
A successful product then could be sold to other Great Lakes port cities that face the same problems of protecting local industrial ship traffic and helping fish, said Jim White, who heads the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan, which will lead the design and development process.
"Given the cost of replacing bulkheads, it's a several hundred million, if not a $1 billion, marketplace," White said.
The Cuyahoga River alone has 11 miles of bulkheads that line both sides of the stream bank from Lake Erie to the Mittal Steel USA Cleveland plant to a depth of about 22 feet.
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