Updated April 2010 

The shoreline of the lower Cuyahoga River is lined with steel bulkheads that are aging, sagging and compromising the habitat for plants and fish in the river. These bulkheads, many of which were installed over 50 years ago, reinforce the banks of the Navigation Channel necessary for maintaining industrial shipping in the lower six miles of the Cuyahoga River.

The Green Bulkhead project, launched in 2006, explores ways to enhance the bulkheads so that they can provide plant habitat for fish migrating from Lake Erie to spawning areas upriver while also allowing for ship movement. Three types of plant habitat for the bulkheads will be tested in 2010: Floating Islands, Beemats, and Cuyahoga Habitat Underwater Baskets (CHUBs).

The CHUBs were previously tested in the first phase of the Green Bulkhead project. Now, in the second phase, improvements to the CHUBs installation techniques and monitoring process will be tested. Installation of all three types of habitats will take place in late May or early June on the west bank of the river near the head of the Navigation Channel at ArcelorMittal.

Thanks go out to Doug Paige at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Samsel Supply Company for their assistance with improvements to the habitat design. Cuyahoga Valley Initiative staff is also working with scientists from Cleveland State University, Midwest Biodiversity Institute and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District on monitoring Green Bulkhead habitat on the Cuyahoga River and reference sites on the Grand River (in order to provide a basis of comparison) from May until September of 2010, and for at least two subsequent years.

For more information, contact Alison Ball at the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission.

Resources
Michael Singer, art meets green infrastructure
Metropolis Magazine, Urban eco-sustainable networks (pdf)