Feb. 9 Akron City Council committee meeting
Covered by Documenter Djuan Wash (see the notes here.)
A one-mile stretch of the Little Cuyahoga River in Akron’s Middlebury neighborhood will soon be improved. Officials plan to remove two low-head dams (dams designed to allow water to flow over the top) and restore two damaged riverbank environment areas.
The improvements will be funded by more than $2.6 million awarded from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Congress created this program in partnership with Canada. The initiative helps communities cover the costs of cleaning up pollution. It also helps combat invasive species and restores native habitats throughout the Great Lakes watershed.
Directory of Public Service Chris Ludle told council members on Feb. 9 that they have worked on getting this funding for two to three years to get the funding. He credited the engineering staff for getting the grant proposal put together.
Project planned for four sites on Little Cuyahoga River
“This project is actually at four different sites,” said Heather Ullinger, a senior engineer for the City of Akron who is helping to lead the project. “There are two sites that are related to dam removal and two sites that are just normal river restoration with no dams involved.”
The two dam removal projects include completely removing and restoring the decayed remnants of an old industrial dam near the Kent Street bridge. The other one will partially remove a two-dam system that was near the original Goodyear headquarters complex. The complex is now owned by IRG and renamed The East End.
Due to how the water flows through the area, the small dam system cannot be completely removed. However, it will be altered to improve the river environment.
Fish return to the river
“We’re modifying them to allow for fish passage, so that means lowering the one. And then the other one, we’re kind of adding fill in the stream in order to ramp up so the fish can can move through there,” Ullinger said.
“We’ve seen the fish coming back in the river,” Ludle told council members about the results of previous work on the river. “Removing the dams will allow those fish to come all the way up the rivers.”
For the riverbank part of the project, the city will restore a section of the river near BARC Dog Park and the Towpath’s Memorial Parkway Trailhead. To the north, the city will continue restoration work around the trailhead. To the south, they will work to restore an area that has been damaged by erosion.
“It’s just simply doing some natural remedies to stabilize the river. Rivers have energy, and sometimes that’s directed in the wrong direction and it actually endangers our utilities, whether it’s high-tension power or sewer lines, or even private property, homes and such. So there are actually natural ways that we can combat that,” Ullinger said. “We’re not fighting Mother Nature. We’re more working with her to also benefit ourselves.”
Akron City Council authorized the acceptance of the funds Feb. 23. They also approved allowing the city to advertise for bids for the dam removal work. Work is expected to begin this summer and, if all goes well, will be completed by the summer of 2027.