Part of Mittal's donation will go toward creating a new kind of bulkhead designers say will grow plants and provide habitat for fish. The Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization is seeking to raise a total of $125,000 for the project. It's hoped the new bulkheads can replace the current aging corrugated steel plates used to shore up land along the Cuyahoga River leading to the port. Shoreline along the river needs to be protected from large ships but the steel bulkheads prevent plants from growing. The Green Bulkheads would solve that problem, says the group's outreach coordinator Jane Goodman.
Jane Goodman: If we're going to improve water quality, which really is our goal, that's one of the things that we have to do. We have to make it work more like a river that isn't a steel tube or a big steel pipe.
The Cuyahoga River Community Planning Organization is working with Northeast Ohio engineering and materials companies to design green bulkhead prototypes, and hopefully, Goodman says, spawn a new business market to replace aging bulkheads around the world. Lisa Ann Pinkerton, 90.3.