Clean Water Works
CLEVELAND, OHIO: From the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, an in-depth and fun conversation led by Donna Friedman and Mike Uva on any and all topics related to clean water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, and the people, projects, and programs serving Lake Erie and our local waterways and communities.
Clean Water Works
Restoring Doan Brook in Cleveland's Cultural Gardens
The Doan Brook Watershed Partnership (DBWP) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) are collaborating on a stream-restoration project to address wall deterioration, improve fish habitat, and restore natural stream function through Cleveland's Cultural Gardens along MLK Boulevard. Sections of the channel's stone walls, built during the Works Progress Administration, have broken apart, and local experts are working to balance historic preservation with ecological restoration.
In this discussion, Emily Kao (DBWP) and Jenn Brancho (USACE) describe their organizations' measured approach to planning a revitalized urban waterway. We learn how channelization has dramatically altered the stream's natural functions, and how the partnership can deliver a comprehensive restoration strategy that honors both ecological needs and cultural heritage.
All right. Well, this is Clean Water Works a podcast about clean water.
Speaker 2:I'm Donna Friedman.
Speaker 1:I'm Mike Uva.
Speaker 4:Hi, I'm Emily Keo. I'm the Watershed Program Manager at Doanbrook.
Speaker 3:Watershed Partnership and I'm Jen Brancho. I'm a planner and biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District.
Speaker 1:What is the Army? Corps of Engineers.
Speaker 3:Great question. So the Army Corps of Engineers works in kind of two atmospheres, if you will, one being military. I have no additional information about military. Stop secret, probably right yeah probably, and then the other one being civil works. So we do things like navigation, flood risk management and aquatic ecosystem restoration. We're very involved with Cleveland Harbor, for example. Locally.
Speaker 2:And that's so that the big ships can get in and out of our.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the harbor we dredge it to remove sediment that builds up over time and make sure that everybody who's shipping or transporting through the harbor can get there safely. So it's a big economic driver.
Speaker 1:Why does the US Army play a role in this type of work?
Speaker 3:So we received our authority through the Rivers and Harbors Act way back when, and I believe the rationale was because the waterways are important to national security. So that's kind of why we have a little bit of a unique role as a federal agency. But all of the work that we do under Civil Works is actually in partnership with a local entity, a non-federal sponsor, and so really when we play a role in this project that we're going to talk about, or in Cleveland Harbor, it's because somebody locally expressed a need to the Army Corps or to Congress to get that authority. Every day the projects I work on are directly with some partner and I get a variety of projects, like I've done invasive carp barrier studies, I've done lock and dam rehabilitation studies All things I never thought I would be doing. But it is very interesting and I think the opportunity to find partnerships and work on these types of projects is one of the things that I find really rewarding and really unique to my current role.
Speaker 1:Emily, tell us about the Doanbrook Watershed Partners and your role there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so Doanbrook Watershed Partnership is a really small environmental nonprofit. We're a watershed partnership and we serve three cities in the region, so we serve Shaker Heights, cleveland Heights and then Cleveland. And so the Doanbrook has its headwaters up in Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights. It joins together, two branches join together at the Shaker Lakes and then the Doanbrook flows down through the Doanbrook Gorge and then goes into a culvert and comes out of that culvert after University Circle, kind of around the Case Western University's campus at the Nord Family Greenway, and then it goes through the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.
Speaker 4:And so we do a whole lot of work around outreach and education, which is primarily my role, engaging folks around sustainability, stormwater, how we can improve water quality in the Doan Brook. But we also do, you know, a large amount of restoration. So small scale, volunteer led restoration, like planting trees or doing stream cleanups, but it can also look like, you know, larger scale restoration projects, like the Swinsky Park restoration project which we completed a couple of years ago in the cultural gardens, or like this project which will hopefully this project that we're undertaking with the Army Corps will allow us to do even more restoration in the Rockefeller Reach in the cultural gardens in the future.
Speaker 2:So Domebrook Watershed has been pretty highly manipulated over time. So Dome Brook watershed has been pretty highly manipulated over time and I know the stream has been quite channelized. It's been culverted and put underground in some locations. Can you talk about the impacts of that on the watershed?
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely so. We see a lot of impacts throughout our watershed. There's culverts In particular. The largest one is the Domebrook flows under University Circle, so it's underground for a large amount of time and that means that we're really not able to have some of the functionality of a stream that we would normally see if there weren't these modifications, In particular, through the cultural gardens, which is the reach that we're really focusing on. There are these historic stone walls that were built by the Work Progress Administration and they really basically at the time, sort of straightened out the brook and built walls on either side.
Speaker 4:As these walls are kind of deteriorating and failing, we're seeing a lot of erosion Since the brook got channelized and really straightened out. When it rains a lot, we're seeing stormwater come rushing through the brook. It's scouring out sediments. It's kind of preventing the brook from doing its normal winding and curving that the brook would have done, you know, before it got channelized. And so, you know, we're seeing a lot of not just like erosion and flooding issues, but also we're not seeing the habitat that we would like to see in the brook. So, just based on analyzing various parts of the brook, there's not great fish habitat, especially, you know when there are these like check dams and through the Rockefeller Reach, that fish can't really cross a dam. Or you know when there's this big, giant escarpment, you know from University Circle up into more of the Dome Brook Gorge and, like the headwaters, fish aren't really able to get past those barriers.
Speaker 1:What's a check dam?
Speaker 2:It's just kind of like a little weir, so it's sort of like a step down in the creek.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Some fish that are smaller aren't able to get past these check dams, and so it's harder for them to swim upstream further into the watershed, you know, get through that large culvert and all of that, and so by analyzing the DNA of the fish in the different sections of Dunbrook and looking at that compared to where the check dams are, you can kind of get a visual of what check dams are causing an issue, which ones aren't and maybe how we can improve the migration of fish throughout the watershed. We have on record from our water quality industrial surveillance staff that there are 17 species of fish and one hybrid that have been collected in the watershed since 2013. And all 17 of those species have been collected at least once in lower Dunbrook. So that's downstream of the check dams. Upstream of the check dams, the total species drops to nine, and so that leads us to think that these check dams are an issue with the fish being able to get further up into the watershed.
Speaker 1:Your organizations, your agencies are working together on this project in Doan Brook. What is the purpose of the project?
Speaker 3:Essentially this project is under the Planning Assistance to States Authority. It's a technical assistance authority which just means that we kind of help you understand the problem and come up with a strategy to address it, but we don't actually partner on that implementation piece. So a lot of times we'll get agencies or groups requesting assistance under the PAS program and then apply for a grant later on or contract for whatever solution they're looking to implement. We knew that the walls were kind of becoming an issue and I believe they have cultural significance, so there's some coordination with the cultural resource agencies that has to happen as they are removed or repaired.
Speaker 4:So there's, you know, these historic walls like you mentioned. They're really beautiful and they were built in like the 40s and 50s. They're these stone walls and they are a historic monument. And 50s, they're these stone walls and they are a historic monument. So with, like the Swinsky Park project, we had to work with I believe it was like the Ohio State Historic Society or something like that and multiple other partners to kind of come up with a plan, and so what we're ultimately hoping to do in subsequent projects is to remove the failed walls because, you know, it's no longer a historic monument if it's just kind of a piece of stone in the brook and, you know, keep the walls that are intact and also lower the height of some of the walls. That's what we did at Swinsky Park, so we took out some walls, some, and kept some in place to preserve that cultural significance, so that we could address, kind of, you know, some of these restoration concerns like reconnecting the Doanbrook to its floodplain, but then also, you know, still keep these historic walls.
Speaker 3:We're looking at the problem from a couple of different perspectives. The problem from a couple of different perspectives. We're going to have our biologists come out soon to do habitat surveys in and around the area. So there are some portions where the walls have actually started to collapse and you can kind of get that interaction with the flood plain. Granted, there's a big differential between where the water is and where the flood plain actually is, but you could have that interaction.
Speaker 3:But Dome Brook being an urban stream and having MLK Boulevard so close to it, where you might remove the walls, you might create like an energy differential where you might have different areas of erosion potential and as you make those changes you might impact your habitat connectivity or the force with which the water is moving through the stream. So we're starting with that habitat assessment but at the same time our H&H, our hydrology and hydraulic engineer, is actually updating a sewer district model for this stretch of the river to kind of identify what is the water velocity that we're talking about here and where are those areas that might be of higher erosion potential, so that we can marry that with a civil engineer's assessment of the condition of the walls and the habitat potential and actually come up with a prioritization framework that can help Domebrook and other partners like the city of Cleveland is a partner on this study and help them come up with an investment strategy. Essentially, how can we best tackle this?
Speaker 2:problem. That's really interesting. So it's like a three, it's a three-part thing. It's the habitat potential, looking at where fish could live potentially. You're also looking at the condition of the walls what you said and then, lastly, you're looking at the stormwater model that would show how fast the water is moving in certain locations. So then, by marrying all those three things that's what you're saying is you would then be able to figure out maybe best solutions moving forward.
Speaker 3:Yeah, basically figuring out if the infrastructure is collapsing in a certain area.
Speaker 3:that's an obvious candidate right to remove that an obvious candidate right to remove that but understanding where you might not have that degradation that's so apparent how to best tackle the problem, because anytime you're removing material from the stream there's a cost associated with that right, whether that's reuse, whether that's compliance with cultural resources regulations or just disposal, and that can add up really fast. We see that a lot in urban streams and even those weirs that are in place right now. Understanding based on your fish community how many fish might you be blocking? Can?
Speaker 3:they actually swim up it in certain water conditions. So really kind of trying to get a comprehensive look at the watershed, especially this targeted reach, to inform that investment strategy.
Speaker 4:You know, generally fish like to have places to hide. They like to be able to have, you know, places to hide from predators. Predators like to have places where they can hunt for prey. There's all these different life processes that you know go on in a stream usually, and when you turn a stream into a straight channel that has stone walls on either side, that becomes a lot more difficult. We're trying to kind of restore some of that functionality. No-transcript. You know there are different types of habitat throughout the stream. Instead of this one channel, we're really trying to create those different types of habitat that a stream would typically have. You know, having some like shade and cover in the stream for fish and other organisms is super important. Know having places where there are rocks for things to hide under and live their lives in a way that it's not as possible right now in this, you know, super channelized brook what is a riffle?
Speaker 4:so streams have, like you know, you can classify it into like riffle run pool. The riffles are where the water is moving the fastest. It's kind of there's a bunch of rocks in the stream. The water is like really moving quickly over it, um, and then a run is kind of the water is moving quickly but you're not having um, as much like air introduced. Is that a good? Yeah, it's usually um.
Speaker 2:Riffles are usually shallower, runs are usually a bit deeper, but the water is still moving quickly. And then you have pools, which Emily was about to explain. Go ahead.
Speaker 4:Yeah, pools are, you know, deeper and the water is moving slower. So you know, there's kind of three different types of habitat and depending on the stream size, you know, sometimes you'll have what you call like applied or a plun or something.
Speaker 4:It's a little bit of a of a combo you know if it's kind of a pool but kind of a run, or like if it's when they're right on top of each other in smaller streams it can be hard to be like. This is exactly where the riffle starts and ends and the natural world. It's not like a cut and dry, like rule necessarily what are the alternatives to these stone walls?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I think the Swinsky Park project is a really good example for that project. We removed some of the you know already collapsed walls and we reduced the height on some other walls so that, you know, in times of high flow the brook will be able to jump parts of those walls, you know, where it's appropriate to. It's not going to be going into the road but it'll be going kind of onto the other side so that it can flood out in a way that is not harmful to organisms in the brook or to folks living in and around the area.
Speaker 4:But then we also, you know, in the areas where we removed walls and we worked to kind of, I believe we restored about 1,000 linear feet of stream. So that means planting trees, adding live stakes, adding these riffles, so putting in some stone, and then we also added about 500 linear feet of stream. So we did that by kind of changing the course of the stream a little bit, adding a little bit of more bends and curves. So where previously the stream would have kind have been more of a straight line, we tried to add some bends and curves so that when water comes rushing through it can kind of slow down, the stream can do its stream thing.
Speaker 2:And I think that project was funded by the sewer district and the Stonebrook watershed oh yeah, and 319.
Speaker 2:So we provided the match. So 319 is funding through the Ohio EPA for smaller projects such as Sewinski Park, and there is a match amount of money required and the sewer district put up the match. That's one of the ways for some of these projects where if we, if we internally, are working on other projects and don't have the capacity to run them, our partners, like Dunbrook Watershed or some of our other watershed partners, are able to go for some of these 319 grants or other projects and they can run them and we will help to fund those because they do help the watersheds that we serve and also, you know, it helps to reduce fish barriers and create floodplain access.
Speaker 3:The sewer district because you guys have so much infrastructure and such a wide service area. Oftentimes we are collaborating with the sewer district even on other projects. What I think is really great about the partnerships is, like Emily can call me or you guys can call me and we can talk about any water resource problem that you have and maybe there's an opportunity for us to assist. In this case it was through technical assistance. Maybe we can talk about a larger scale construction project or maybe we can connect you with other folks like Ohio Emergency Management, ohio EPA, to help understand where the water resource falls.
Speaker 3:I think the other interesting thing with this project, with Dome Brook in particular, is that we were able to use a cost share waiver that came out fairly recently, and that cost share waiver is to conduct projects that benefit economically disadvantaged communities. Typically, technical assistance has been cost shared 50-50 under the PAS program, and that can be a barrier to participation for a lot of communities that might not have a lot of resources available to them or have a lot of competing resources, and so through the cost share waiver, we're able to work with partners who in the past might not have even known right that this was an option. So I think that was one of the really exciting things for me.
Speaker 4:And that is super helpful for us. You know, the partnership is a very small organization. There's, just, in terms of full-time staff, it's just me and then my boss, dr Mo Drinkard, and so, you know, having only two people would be very challenging for us. To, you know, do this sort of assessment ourselves or, to you know, hire out multiple contractors would be very costly and obviously, you know, we're working on a fairly small budget. We're, you know, a small community-serving organization, and so having this program, having these resources available to really be able to assess what's going on in this reach of the brook, is incredibly helpful for us and it builds a lot of capacity for us to then, later on down the road, pursue larger grants for restoration, which we do believe will be necessary after we've, you know, done this ecological assessment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it seems like this will help you kind of lay the groundwork and then piece out what projects can come next. Which is sometimes the hardest part is just figuring out where you stand, and then you can kind of come up with those next steps. Definitely, jen. How did you end up at the Army Corps? You can kind of come up with those next steps, definitely, jen how did you end up at the Army Corps?
Speaker 3:I actually started my career at Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners up here, and then I started working for the US Environmental Protection Agency out in Philadelphia. I did that for like a year and a half overlined with the pandemic, and so never really got used to living in Philly and just kind of like was trying to move back to Cleveland. So I started with Pittsburgh district, which is where I'm from, um, and then Buffalo district was able to hire a planner out in Cleveland, and so that worked. Are you an engineer? Um, no, so I am just a stream biologist actually.
Speaker 1:You don't say just a stream biologist?
Speaker 3:Well, because I'm not a planner or I'm an engineer, but in my current capacity I serve as a biologist planner, project manager and program manager. Wow.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of things, see, yeah, and Emily, how did you end up at Dunbrook University?
Speaker 4:So I joined Doanbrook about a year ago in March, and before that I was an intern with Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District, which was like my first like quote unquote job after college, like right at the tail end of the pandemic, and was kind of like what next? And I was super lucky to kind of move to Cleveland. I'm actually not from the area and so I came here and was trying to figure out all of the different organizations, because there are so many different watershed organizations. I knew I was vaguely interested in water and sustainability and so in working with the Soil and Water Conservation District I was able to hear about Doan Brook and the work they were doing and luckily enough they hired me. So a number of like happy accidents, I guess, got me to where I am now. That's great. And where are you from originally? I'm from the Boston area, so yeah, kind of different biome.
Speaker 4:They do have water. But I think it's really cool being in the Great Lakes. Like people really talk about watersheds more here than in in massachusetts. Maybe it was just, you know, because I was a child, but like I, I didn't really talk about watersheds very much or think about, you know, the impact that my lifestyle might be having on like water quality. That's like something really cool about northeast ohio that I found so like, uh, fast forward.
Speaker 2:Let's say, 15 years later, what do you hope that this corridor looks like?
Speaker 4:I think in the next like five to 10 years we want to do restoration of the Rockefeller Reach and so hopefully, 15 years from now, we have trees growing, you know. So, wenski, maybe is like shading out parts of the brook because you know we have trees that were planted a few years ago Hopefully they're bigger and you know they've survived to be a little bit, you know, out of that kind of danger zone where we lose a lot of trees. So I definitely hope to see a lot more ecological function in that reach of the brook. But I also think, more generally, we have a lot of community serving programs through some of our watershed festivals. We do a bunch of fishing activities in Rockefeller Lagoon where we stock fish five times per year. I would love to see more of a community connection between. This is what a stream restoration project can look like and this is how we can make our streams and our habitats more resilient. You know, as we're moving forward and trying to undo some of those past missteps in terms of channelizing the brook and building infrastructure, that later is now causing issues out causing issues.
Speaker 4:The Doanbrook is about eight miles long and you know, for such a small watershed we're about like 12 square miles. We have over 65,000 residents living in this area, so it's a very dense area and I think you know that makes this work really important because we're serving so many people even though we are, you know, just this small but mighty stream. I've been super encouraged, like all the kids that I talk to are really interested in the brook and they have like amazing questions and I think, as we're able to, you know, do more of that education and outreach to our community, really talking about like place specific issues and how we can all work together to steward the Doanbrook and beyond.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think we finished one of our Doanbrook projects along the art museum that greenway that you were talking about.
Speaker 2:And it is wild. We finished it not too many years ago and it's already grown in so well and the plants are really starting to take off. But I think that part that you were talking about how community can get integrated into these projects the way that that was designed so that there's a walking path, there's a bridge that crosses over it so you can go over to the art museum it just really does like tie together the community and the view shed right Like you're not only exploring University Circle but you are doing that alongside this creek that has historically flowed through this area. I would love to see more of that.
Speaker 1:Emily Kao from Dome Brook Watershed Partnership and Jen Brancho with the US Army Corps of Engineers, talking about a partnership on Dome Brook here in Cleveland.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys so much for coming on today. Thank you for having us. This was fun.
