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
Ohio Stormwater Conference 2026
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Mike and Donna report from the 19th annual Ohio Stormwater Conference in Sandusky, OH. The day's presentations touch on education, stormwater modeling and maintenance, and funding, and demonstrate how design choices and policy decisions can ripple across entire communities.
Our guests include:
Erica Matheny, Tinker's Creek Watershed Partners
Refka Abroug, Tinker's Creek Watershed Partners
Jesse Rufner, GPD Group
Jack Caruso, Cleveland Metroparks
Joey Smith, Ohio State University
Tony Burgoyne, OHM Advisors
Topics discussed:
- The Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners’ new strategic plan and illustrated watershed mapping
- Water scarcity, pollution, and access to clean drinking water in Northern Africa
- An East Cleveland project that ties together water lines, roadways, and sewer improvements
- Antecedent moisture modeling
- Extreme storms, risk tools, and what “reasonable” infrastructure can handle
- Mosquito science in stormwater control measures
- Stacking funding sources and building coalitions through policy roundtables
For more information on the Ohio Stormwater Conference, visit tinkerscreek.org
Welcome From The Conference Floor
SPEAKER_07All right, this is Mike Uva with Clean Waterworks, a podcast about clean water. And I am at the 19th annual Ohio Stormwater Conference. My co-host Donna Friedman is here at the event she presented this morning, and she will be joining us shortly for some podcasting and talking about what she worked on for her presentation.
Watershed Education And Legislative Outreach
SPEAKER_07But to get things started off, I am joined by Dr. Erica Mithini.
SPEAKER_08Hi, Michael, how are you?
SPEAKER_07How are you? Good to see you again.
SPEAKER_08I'm doing great. Yeah, I'm the executive director of Tinker's Creek Watershed Partners.
SPEAKER_07Another great event, big one this year.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, thank you. Yep, this is actually the biggest stormwater conference we've had yet. It's our 19th year, as you mentioned, and we have over a thousand attendees here this year at Kalahari and Sandusky. And Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners is actually celebrating our 20th anniversary of the organization. So it's a big year for us here. I know, like you said, Donna presented this morning, over a hundred exhibitors as well. So there's a lot of um just new products being shared and new best practices. So that's also very cool for people to learn about. With our organization, with Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners, we have a lot of exciting new things happening too. So we are in the process of finishing a new strategic plan. We're incorporating education into our mission, and so we realize like the value of education at events like this is so important, and also in our communities, educating everybody about watersheds and about storm water, and um just in general protecting nature and the environment. One other thing along those lines, we got uh funding from OEF, the Ohio Environmental Education Fund, to recreate a map that I think the sewer district initially funded the first round of this map. It's an illustrated watershed map of the Tinkers Creek watershed, and it has lots of landmarks that people really identify within the watershed, and plus it educates around what is a watershed at the same time. Um that's also on our website, so tinkerscreek.org.
SPEAKER_07Okay. And people can find out about volunteer opportunities as well.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, we actually have an events page on there as well, so we have a lot of different events happening throughout the year, and then um also volunteer opportunities are always important, especially in the summer when the weather is finally gonna consistently get better, hopefully. We're just really excited to have so many people here, and um, we are also doing a legislative luncheon today. Um we received some funding at an organization from Healing Our Waters to educate legislators from the state of Ohio or federally around um just stormwater and watershed and why it's so important to um protect these areas. The Great Lakes are one of the largest freshwater resources in the world. And so um doing things to help really keep funding flowing to protect those resources is so so important. And we figured where else to do it better than here, where we have so many experts that can share their stories. Excellent.
SPEAKER_07Yes, thank you so much, Dr. Erica Mithini, Executive Director, Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners.
SPEAKER_08Thanks, Michael.
Tunisia’s Water Challenge And IoT
SPEAKER_07We are back at the 2026 Ohio Stormwater Conference. I am talking to Refka Abrug, also of Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners. Uh welcome.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, are you enjoying the conference so far?
SPEAKER_01So much, and I'm trying to leverage the most and gain knowledge, and I'm really interested in the solutions the US is doing for water, and I'm trying like to get inspired, and it's happening.
SPEAKER_07What's your role at Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners?
SPEAKER_01So I'm part of uh the Community Engagement Exchange Program. It's a fellowship funded by the US Department of State. I've been volunteering with them. The organization is really focused on environmental education, conservation, and protecting local waterways and ecosystems.
SPEAKER_07Tell us a little bit about your background. You said you're from Tunisia.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I'm from Tunisia, and if you don't know it, it's in the North Africa. And I'm a first-year engineering student, software engineering, and I'm a theater actress too.
SPEAKER_07A theater actress too. Are you just here for the conference or do you have a fellowship with uh Tinker's Creek for a fellowship for three months? And then you go back to Tunisia?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'll go back and when I'm when I'm going back, I'm supposed to work on a CEP community engagement project, and it's where I'm gonna implement some of the solutions I saw here in the US and try to make Tunisia leverage from them. And you are studying software engineering, but you have an interest in stormwater and I think I can make software engineering go with water protection because you know everything is happening now with IoT, Internet of Things. So I already have that as a specialty. And as the solutions I saw here on the conference, there is a lot of things that make use of that. So I think I can be useful in this kind of things.
SPEAKER_07What are some of the biggest issues in your home country uh when it comes to water?
SPEAKER_01So in Tunisia we have water scarcity and pollution. So I was surprised that in the US you can drink water out of the tap. In Tunisia, it's not. It doesn't, yeah. So it's sometimes you can even see the color of water that is changed, so it's not safe to drink it. And some people, especially in the south, they don't have access to clean water. So like they walk miles just to get some water from the wells. So it's really a problem. And I'm trying like to get inspiration, maybe some solutions that I can do there to help. So I'm trying to raise awareness campaigns, get people who are really savvy about water issues in Tunisia, talk about that. We can do something. We have a lot of doctors, engineers, scientists, but they don't really care. So I'm trying to rise this care and awareness.
SPEAKER_07Make it more of a priority for them, yeah. Rivka Abrug, thank you so much for stopping to talk with us here at the Ohio Stormwater Conference.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. That was my
East Cleveland Model And Loan Funding
SPEAKER_01pleasure. Oh, ooh!
SPEAKER_00Donna Friedman represent in the house.
SPEAKER_07Donna, how are you enjoying the conference so far?
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, it's been great. I got here last night because I had a 9 a.m. presentation, which was the first presentation out of the gate this morning.
SPEAKER_07Right. It was a joint presentation with OHM advisors.
SPEAKER_00They're a local engineering firm. I presented with Ashley Wadsworth and Alex Litowski, who are both water resource engineers for OHM. It was good. And we talked about while you were there. What did we talk about? Let's test your your uh recall here.
SPEAKER_07Well, your portion was an overview of the sewer district and its wastewater side and its stormwater side. And I believe you were kind of giving some context for a project in East Cleveland.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Okay, good recall. So yeah, our work at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District really laid the groundwork for um OHM to use the model that we provided to really dive in on this specific project called the Hayden Avenue project. They're doing waterline replacement, they're doing resurfacing, and they're also working on the sewer system in that area. So the sewer district paid for local sewer system evaluation studies from 2016 to 2021. And we created planning level models for uh some of these project areas, some of these issues. And so Hayden Avenue was one of those um that we created this this model for. We also helped to get the community some funding. So um we lobbied to get the disadvantaged communities definition changed within the water pollution control loan fund program. That's Ohio's clean water state revolving loan fund. And uh once that was changed, East Cleveland, which had a population just over the previous threshold, became eligible. And so um, they actually got a one million dollar design loan, but they got principal forgiveness, so it really functions more like a grant.
SPEAKER_07Great. So they were kind of falling through the cracks for a while because they were not eligible.
SPEAKER_00Right. Even though they have the lowest medium income in Ohio, you know, and they're considered to be in physical distress, they still didn't qualify because originally the definition said that it had to be a small community with a population of 10,000 or less. We lobbied hard to get that changed and uh they got the grant, which is great. And so from then on, we worked to get all of our communities that were eligible funding through that program. We we brought in about $15 million to those communities.
SPEAKER_07Awesome. Go sewer district.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know go sewer district, right? And go communities for you know being being willing to work with us to put those nominations in. And then they talked about modeling a lot and it was very in-depth about how antecedent moisture modeling works, essentially. What's it called?
SPEAKER_07Antecedent.
SPEAKER_00Antecedent moisture modeling. So they essentially take rainfall data from the last 50 years and they take uh seasonal temperature data from the last 50 years. They look at a specific model location or meter location, and then they create a model that then reflects how rainfall and temperature should impact the flow in that specific sewer um given its location and sewer shed.
SPEAKER_04Interesting.
SPEAKER_00It's a little complicated. But essentially it's just a right size the sewer so that you're not overspending by being overly conservative, like a regular model would be occasionally. So should we go walk around and find somebody?
SPEAKER_07Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00All right,
Water Law, Rain Tools, Extreme Storms
SPEAKER_00great.
SPEAKER_07And we are here with Jesse Rufner of the GPD group. He is a project manager in the water resources group. Correct. Right? Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You got it. Thanks for having me. Jesse and I worked on some projects together. Jesse works a lot of times on the hydraulic modeling on our projects. And so I figure it'd be good to ask him what presentations he decided to go to. What did you think so far?
SPEAKER_05So today I've been to three different ones, kind of uh a little bit varied. Usually I focus on more modeling or technical stuff. Today I went to the first one, it was uh the legal perspective, kind of the foundation for water law in Ohio. Oh there's a framework of federal versus state versus local and how they overlap and how there's a lot of gray area. Um and it's kind of usually up to sounds like up to judges kind of how things are interpreted whenever stuff goes to the courts. So that was one, and then I went to a district one on the different stream restoration jobs, and one of our projects was there, the Hemlock Creek one. Nice. That's fun. And then the last one was on a somebody created open source software for rainfall data, kind of uh diving into the rainfall data and getting different event information. So we are kind of tied to the district. We are working on a uh master plan study for the city of Hudson for their Brandywine Creek watershed. So we're basically building off the master plan model that was built by the district.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so you're taking that model and just just updating it, breaking it down.
SPEAKER_05And then yeah, George has let us use the we're diving into the par tool a little bit on that one. So we haven't fully used it cr yet, but we are hoping to.
SPEAKER_00So George Remius manages our uh well, he manages a lot of things. Um and he he uh helped to create a system that helps us understand risk uh in relation to rainfall and frequency. So that's that's what we call the par tool, essentially. Um and Hudson really recently had a pretty pretty wild storm event that probably kicked off a lot of this.
SPEAKER_05So it'd been August 8th, 2024. Um depending on where you were in the city, they got somewhere between a 200 and a 500 year storm. So it was like seven inches of rain, I think, in about two, two to three hours, I think, if I'm remembering correctly.
SPEAKER_00That's like absolutely insane.
SPEAKER_05Nothing's gonna hold that. I mean, and so just I think I think even in the law presentation today, just talking about you know what is reasonable for infrastructure. Like that's that's called like an act of God there. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially when you consider that like most street catch basins were built for like the two-year storm, two to two. Especially in the older communities. So yeah, capacity not really built for a 500-year storm event, certainly not seven inches of rain in like two hours.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I think it was an older subdivision that had a lot of damage. Now they're designed the roadways and grating so that if it there is a flood event, like it at least is not hitting houses where this one was not, and so a basement or two turned into swimming pools, which is unfortunate.
SPEAKER_00But yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um just yeah, the infrastructure couldn't carry the flow, and yeah, that's what happens.
SPEAKER_00That's wild. Well, thank you so much for coming on our podcast today and giving us a summary of what you've seen so far.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_07Jesse Rufner, GPD Group. Hey Donna, you having a good time?
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm having a good time. I had a really solid lunch, which is good, because I missed breakfast because I was anxiously preparing for my presentation.
SPEAKER_07You had the butterflies.
SPEAKER_00I had the butterflies and then I had the roast beef. So worked out.
Metroparks Erosion And Restoration Work
SPEAKER_07We're here with Jack Caruso of Cleveland Metro Parks. He's a planning engineer. How long have you been with uh Metro Parks? Uh a little over a year. What's an example of something that you're planning and or engineering?
SPEAKER_02Um, we have some trail projects going on right now that we've are taking from kind of the planning stage to the design stage. That has been mostly what I've been doing the last year, but I also I help out with any of our stream or wetland restoration projects.
SPEAKER_00Did you do stormwater things in a previous life?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Uh in a my previous role, I was a uh project engineer, mostly doing stream and wetland restoration projects.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's great. I went to a presentation today and it was Is it Fastoria? Yes.
SPEAKER_02What city was it? Yeah. Fastoria. Fastoria.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I had never heard of it, which is why I couldn't recall it. And it was talking about how they had a drinking water reservoir that they took offline and turned into like a partial wetland running like essentially like 15 storms a year through this like new wetland channel um, through the old reservoir. And it was really interesting. Just making wetlands. And they had like JLRI money and ODR money too, so that's cool. Sorry, Great Lakes Restoration Initiative money and worked with Ohio Department of Natural Resources as well.
SPEAKER_02So it's in a sewer district that does a lot of stormwater modeling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we do a lot of watershed modeling from our master plans. We have base models, and then we work to update those base models every year depending on what watersheds we're focusing on.
SPEAKER_07Aaron Powell So Metro Parks has a lot of green space. What are some of the stormwater issues that you have to uh manage or keep an eye on?
SPEAKER_02Well, we definitely have uh a lot of green spaces, but we also have developed spaces that we try to develop responsibly. Um we do our best to implement green infrastructure wherever we're trying to develop parking lots or or more vertical buildings. I mean, we have miles and miles of streams um that are being fed from developed areas outside of our parks. Uh so we have erosion issues inside of our parks on a number of our streams that we try to keep up and manage with.
SPEAKER_00We just sent a report to the park manager for Wildwood because of some recent erosion that was caused by that um March 30 first storm that came through. So it's always something.
SPEAKER_02At Yukwood Creek along. Yeah. Did it have to do with a wall that had fallen?
SPEAKER_00Coming in hot, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So that is actually one of the projects I'm working on now. Okay. If I'm we're talking about the same area, because there are a few older, I believe CCC or WPA walls that have been in the stream for a long time that are slowly, you know, having issues. Having issues as uh, you know, hundred-year, eighty-year-old walls do. But one of them near the old Highland Bridge um has almost entirely fallen in. Oh. And we are replacing that old historic bridge to restore access up to the old Highland picnic area. Okay. Part of that is to take out and stabilize that long section of bank uh on the right side of the creek there.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's good. That's great. Um, when you come to the Ohio Stormwater Conference, are you mostly looking for like technical information or lessons learned?
SPEAKER_02I like learning, I guess, more about if there's any new techniques or new developments in stream restoration. Um in the years I was working more on stream restoration, there was seemingly new developments every year. I mean, it's a relatively newer field of engineering. So I come here to hear about people's experiences with their projects and to try to get takeaways from that.
SPEAKER_00That's great.
SPEAKER_07Thank you, Jack Caruso of Cleveland Metro Parks, for sitting down with us. Thank you. On our Clean Waterworks Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Jack.
SPEAKER_07Thank you.
Mosquitoes And Stormwater Design Choices
SPEAKER_07Our next guest here at the 2026 Ohio Stormwater Conference is Joey Smith from the Ohio State University, who just gave a tremendous presentation on mosquitoes.
SPEAKER_00We were gonna book club it and like Mike and I were gonna just go and listen. But then there's so much good information that we just stole Joey right off of his presentation.
SPEAKER_04Thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_07I didn't realize there were so many different kinds of mosquitoes.
SPEAKER_04Yes. So in our study we looked at mosquitoes and stormwater control measures in central Ohio, and we saw ten different taxa. So we saw all different kinds of mosquitoes.
SPEAKER_00So some of them were aggressive biters, some of them were vectors, meaning they carried um diseases, and then others were innocuous to humans.
SPEAKER_07Donna, mosquitoes are a big concern for stormwater construction, yeah?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. From a community outreach standpoint, anytime we're doing a project, there is always a hand in the air about mosquitoes. Like how many mosquitoes are there gonna be? Are you creating a breeding habitat within our neighborhood? It's definitely a concern. And you have a lot of findings here about different stormwater control measures and what essentially mosquitoes like or don't like.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so in order for a mosquito to bite us and be that terrestrial adult, they need to develop in an aquatic habitat. So mosquitoes lay their eggs on the surface of stagnant water or along the shoreline, and then um they go through complete metamorphosis, so they go from an egg to a larvae to a pupa to a terrestrial adult. And you need to have standing water for 72 hours or more for the mosquitoes to uh be able to become adults. Um if the habitat goes dry, then they'll just become stranded and um won't continue that production. So the vector species of concern were in detention ponds, which are um designed to drain within 72 hours, except for two micro pools. Um one of them is a four-bay kind of at the inlet, and then a micro pool at the outlet. They're designed to constantly hold water, and that's the perfect condition to have mosquitoes. So we saw mosquitoes there, but the concerning part was it was the vector species that were in those micropools. In constructed wetlands, we saw the most abundance of mosquitoes, but um it was a diversity of species and uh less of those of concerns. And then in retention ponds, we saw the fewest um vector species, and uh so it's kind of like those constructed wetlands in those retention ponds. They have an ecosystem. There's bats, there's dragonflies, there's maybe fish that feed on the larvae. So there's a balanced ecosystem. Keeps it in check.
SPEAKER_07Can you explain the difference between detention and retention ponds?
SPEAKER_04So detention is temporarily detaining the water designed to drain within 72 hours, but retention is to permanently retain the water. Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And the sewer district. So the reason why there's these different types of design and what, you know, even the sewer the sewer district is moving more towards is these detention ponds, the dry ponds that have these two, you know, two micro pools, one a four bay and one maybe by the outlet. Um and that's because of maintenance, essentially. Maintenance and also capacity. And a lot of times you can hold more more water back um when you have an empty basin to start with. And then the micro pools, especially at the four bay, helps you to remove sediment from one location instead of in a retention pond where that sediment slows down in the water column, drops out, and then you essentially have to try to maintain the whole wet basin area, and it's just really awkward and hard. And so a lot of utilities, a lot of stormwater utilities are kind of moving more towards that detention basin because of maintenance reasons. So we don't love hearing that there's there's this issue. So I guess I'm trying to uh one of the questions that was asked was what can you do, you know, in those in those pools? And you had some recommendations.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the detention basins have those micro pools to allow for sedimentation, which is really important because you don't want your facilities just to clog up. But having that standing water is the prime habitat for mosquitoes, uh mosquito larval production. So um I'd also say that these detention basins, they also need to be maintained. Right. So we need to mow them. And if you mow the grass when it's uh wet, then the tires of the lawnmower create these divots that's perfect for larval mosquito production.
SPEAKER_00We always maintain our work and our projects, but I guess we have to be even more considerate about when are we getting the mower out there. Yep. I mean, no one wants to mow a wet lawn, right? But I think just being extra cognizant that not only could it be bad for the vegetation when you're mowing it when it's wet, but also you could cause these like secondary problems. Yep.
SPEAKER_04And you brought up vegetation. I just wanted to emphasize the importance of having a diversity of vegetation because with the diversity of vegetation, you have a diversity of mosquitoes. When you have a monoculture, just think about cattails taking over an entire stormwater control measure, then uh we saw more prevalence of those mosquitoes of concern. So having um diverse plants, a nice ecosystem, those are all ecological controls.
SPEAKER_00I really like the slide that you had. It wasn't your study, but it was Metzger 2018, um, about structural causes and corrective measures when it came to uh like accidentally creating mosquito habitat. Some of those structural causes were uneven basin grade, loose riprap, uneven grade and conveyance pipe. Can you talk a little bit more about um that study and what was learned?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so that study they looked at different stormwater control measures and they saw what was going wrong with them to cause mosquito habitat. And for example, they saw that um riprap is a kind of rock that we put there to dissipate flows, to make sure that there's not erosion. And if that riprap becomes loose, think about like undercutting a rock. It's kind of creating a puddle and that puddle's in standing water. Yeah. And then if you um have an uneven basin grade, it's like kind of lumpy, then there's places where puddles will form and that that puddle's perfect production spot for mosquitoes. Also, when we talk about stormwater conveyance, we want to get that water moving. And if that water is stagnant, let's say your pipe is kind of flat and the water's just staying there, or if you have a concrete pad and the water's just kind of puddled there, that means that um it's the perfect conditions for mosquito production.
SPEAKER_00You know, the other thing I was thinking about, Mike, is that sometimes we design these basins so that they're only really receiving flow at like, you know, a five-year storm event or something like that. And considering that if it's 72 hours that there needs to be water in the basin, maybe designing it for a lower storm event, like the one-year event or the two-year event is actually better because you're getting more likely you're catching more storms and moving that water through the basin.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so one of our findings was about the hydraulic loading ratio. So that's the ratio of the drainage area of the watershed draining to the stormwater control measure compared to the area of the stormwater control measure. And we saw if there was bigger drainage area draining to a smaller stormwater control measure, we saw more flushing, more turnover of that water. And there were fewer instances of mosquito production in that case.
SPEAKER_00That's great. What's next for you, Dr. Joey?
SPEAKER_04So I'm currently a research scientist at Ohio State University, so it's a staff scientist, and I'm doing some monitoring and design of stormwater control measures all across the state.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing.
SPEAKER_04And I'll be in China this time next week. Oh, I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00Wow, what are you gonna be doing?
SPEAKER_04I'll be studying sponge city. So sponge city is Chinese China's version of large-scale green infrastructure installation. Um, sponge refers to soil, and the goal is in ultra-urban areas to reintroduce soil back into cities through engineered rain gardens, bioretention cells, and constructed wetlands. So I'll be studying sponge cities in China.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. How long do you get to be there for?
SPEAKER_04I'll be there for two weeks, but in 2023, I was a visiting scholar there for a whole year.
SPEAKER_00Oh, wow. So do you speak um any technique?
SPEAKER_04I speak Chinese, Mandarin.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm so happy for you. That sounds wonderful. Well, I hope you have fun and thanks for stopping by.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Thanks for inviting
Stacking Funds And Building Coalitions
SPEAKER_03me. It's a freaking honor to meet you. I've listened to every single one of your podcasts.
SPEAKER_00That's such a lie.
SPEAKER_07It's not. I'm gonna introduce you, Tony Burgoyne.
SPEAKER_03Very good.
SPEAKER_07With OHM Advisors. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03What is that? It's uh an organization that got its roots uh starting in 1962 in Detroit. Yeah. Uh, and now we've grown to be uh Midwest firm, small firm still. The mission of advancing communities. Our goal really is to provide all of the infrastructure services that firms like ours provide from a local perspective. Here in uh Northeast Ohio, where the district obviously owns significant ground, uh, we work in a community capacity where we serve as their municipal representatives, much like you, Donna, uh, to help with all of their infrastructure needs, whether it's from a planning perspective, our engineers, our architects, uh our construction and field services people, all of our drinking water and stormwater and wastewater-related uh professionals to address all of their needs, right? The communities have such a diverse need, right? And you said it well this morning, right? They have to focus on the immediate needs here, and so we help them. Okay.
SPEAKER_07So you're figuring out how to pay for these projects for the communities.
SPEAKER_03Um correct. We love developing the plan and the capital improvements you know strategy for a community, but we hate seeing them sit on a shelf. We like to move them forward. Yeah. Uh recently in East Cleveland, right, you spoke spoke about it this morning. Um I mean, that's a Phoenix kind of rising from the ashes type of story, right? If you really think about it. Yeah, what give a little description of what that project entails. OHM has been engaged with East Cleveland for a handful of years. I think starting back to 2017, really. We've helped them secure uh capital funding to deal with a lot of their needs from a drinking water perspective with Cleveland Water Department, uh, with the district from the sewer, you know, basement backups, flooding issues, age infrastructure issues, working with NOACA and other partners to help with roadway repairs and restoration needs. Uh we are named their city representative, if you will, pseudo city engineer. Right. Uh so we fill in for that role for them, helping to address council. Uh this project that we're presented today here at the district uh in conjunction with with Donna was really uh another one of similar stories that we can tell about East Cleveland. Looking at a very high trafficked area, uh large uh arterial corridor for the community. Uh RTA sits along that border there. Uh through the SSES programs that the district has implemented over the past, you know, we look at them and we try to find ways to, you know, marry solutions that look at, you know, improving a corridor from a holistic standpoint from the ground up. Um so we kind of unpack that and then we stack funding from all those places where uh in this case along Hayden Avenue, we've secured all of the funding except for a small three million dollar chunk that we're now actively looking to uh work with the district on to help fund, which obviously brings not only the the benefit from a transportation perspective, from a drinking water perspective, um but also from a basement backup and a sewer and an environmental benefit, right? Um that's one of many stories in just East Cleveland alone. Their socioeconomic um position does help with that funding ask, and I think has been a catalyst for the district to um help advocate for communities that have larger populations, but you know, the economic uh position isn't really all that great for a community. Poverty level is high, right? The median household income is low compared to the state median. And um, and so we do leverage that, helping a community to reach out and build their own networks because most community leaders don't know of all the funding paths that are available to them or how to navigate them.
SPEAKER_00Were you at the policy uh roundtable?
SPEAKER_03I was. It was fantastic. Uh your colleague uh Kim Collisch was there. Um great advocate, by the way. It's all about her connectivity. Uh I think that's her her hashtag slogan for the year, I think. Right. The policy really is about working with state legislators, uh local leadership across kind of the Lake Erie communities to talk about where are the problems. Um and much of what we're talking about today, like in East Cleveland, is is exactly what was on the table uh during the launch. You know, working with those legislators to say, hey, you know, there is a roadblock in the funding pass, right? We have a workforce development issue in our industry, right? Whether it's on the stormwater side or the drinking water side or the wastewater side, right? Regionalization is a huge topic, right? Can we bring other communities together, like we are doing in East Cleveland, for instance, to you know, stack funding sources to get more stakeholders uh involved in that. Right now, uh legislators want to see data, right? Is the investment of taxpayer-based dollars going to a good cause? Um and we're seeing, as as it relates to, you know, phosphorus, you know, and contaminants into our Lake Erie communities and the lake itself. We're seeing data showing an improvement because of that $100 million of investment.
SPEAKER_00So it sounds like the policy roundtable was good bringing different partners together that maybe wouldn't always be in the same room.
SPEAKER_03Yes, legislators there, partners, um, board members from the Tinkers Creek Watershed uh partners group.
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks for uh podcasting with us and uh sparing some of your precious,
Final Thanks And Sign Off
SPEAKER_00precious time, Tony.
SPEAKER_07Thank you so much. Tony Burgoyne with OHM Advisors. Thanks for joining us.
