NINE MILE CREEK

BIG NEWS FOR NINE MILE CREEK!
The City of South Euclid, Ohio has replaced the Langerdale Retention Basin (between Green Road and Belvoir Blvd. north of Cedar Road) with a built wetland. The 10-acre project, designed by Biohabitats, Inc., will create naturally vegetated wetland areas, replacing a channelized drainageway with a series of ponds and weirs to that will slow, hold and filter sediment and pollution. In addition, the project will include a conservation easement on six acres in a forested section of the Nine Mile Corridor at the north end of the city. The Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District and the Euclid Creek Watershed Coordinator are partners in the project.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS !

Nine Mile Creek, so named because it reaches its outflow into Lake Erie in the Village of Bratenahl, nine miles from Cleveland's Public Square, is so intensely urbanized that only small pockets of its course are open. From its headwaters near Cedar Road in University Heights to a channelized run north of Monticello and west of Belvoir Blvd., the creek is buried underground. It sees the light of day again as it reaches its north end at Bratenahl.

LOCATION:

Northeast Ohio, Cuyahoga County, including the communities of
University Heights, South Euclid, Cleveland Heights, Cleveland and Bratenahl

CHARACTERISTICS

Drainage:	Drains approximately 18 square miles
Length:	11 miles

WATERSHED-SPECIFIC CHALLENGES TO HEALTH AND FUNCTION

Most of Nine Mile Creek is buried and runs through culverts, receiving most of its surface water through storm drains. This creates significant amounts of urban street runoff. Where it flows aboveground much of its course is channelized and concrete-lined and receives high nutrient loads.

Habitat, both surface and aquatic, along most of the creek is severly impaired.

LANGERDALE RETENTION
BASIN RESTORATION

In spring of 2008, work began to convert the Langerdale Retention basin from this:

to this, a new wetland in one of Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs (click here to see a larger version

Beginning the dig

Taking out the old...

to put in the new (light grey horizontal stripes are the new weirs)

weir, a little closer.

13 weirs from north to south

even without roots to filter it, the water in the last ponds is clearer than that in the first ones

Biohabitats and Hovancsek staff check a middle weir where storm drainage from Green Road enters the system

and our first new residents check out pond #1

Four years later, summer 2012:

The Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization (CRCPO)
is host to the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan (RAP) and
the Cuyahoga American Heritage River Initiative.

We work with partners, stakeholders and communities
in five Northeast Ohio counties to restore and revitalize the
Cuyahoga River Watershed and Areas Of Concern, and
to improve water quality in the watershed and Lake Erie.

www.cuyahogariverrap.org