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EPA to host public meeting on efforts to remove contaminated sediment in Cuyahoga River Old Channel

cuyahoga river downtown.JPG
The Cuyahoga River near Downtown Cleveland. U.S. EPA cleanup efforts will remove approximately 100,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the Cuyahoga River Old Channel, which diverges from the main river just before it empties into the lake.

A public meeting in Cleveland Wednesday evening will provide residents with an update on cleanup efforts soon to be underway in the Cuyahoga River Old Channel.

The project, led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, aims to remove 100,000 cubic yards of sediment in the Old Channel — which diverges from the main river just before it empties into the lake — contaminated with oil, grease, metals and toxic chemicals like PCBs.

The meeting will provide insight on the project's first phase: building a facility to hold the contaminated sediment during the cleanup, said Kali Denis, the EPA's Great Lakes Legacy Act project manager.

"We will be constructing berms to hold the material that we will be removing from the river bottom and that confined disposal facility will be constructed at the Port of Cleveland's combat confined disposal facility area," she said.

Wednesday's meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Windows on the River in the Flats. Panelists include representatives from the EPA along with partner organizations the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Port of Cleveland and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

"We'll be discussing the project design, the timeline," Denis said. "I do want to note that there will be future public meetings that will be more focused on phases two and three." Those phases deal with the removal or the dredging of material in the federal channel and those surrounding shoreline areas, she said

The project to clean up the contamination will kick off in 2025, Denis said. The sediment will be removed from the channel and transferred to the storage facility during phase two. Phase three will be focused on removing contaminated sediment from the shoreline and capping contaminated areas where removing the sediment would create structural concerns.

There will be time for questions before the meeting concludes at 8 p.m., Denis said.

The Cuyahoga River is an Area of concern

The EPA classified the 45 miles of the Cuyahoga River as an Area of Concern in 1987 due to erosion and contamination from agricultural, urban and industrial sources. The classification sparked cleanup efforts along the river through the agency's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

The Old Channel project is one of two cleanup initiatives supported through funding from the EPA's Great Lakes Legacy Act along with the Gorge Dam remediation project in Summit County.

The Gorge Dam aerates a lot of water downstream but starves the river of oxygen in a two-mile stagnant pool.
Mark Urycki
/
Ideastream
The Gorge Dam aerates a lot of water downstream but starves the river of oxygen in a two-mile stagnant pool.

The EPA source of contamination in the Old Channel was likely caused by historic industries along the river, Denis said.

"As part of the project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and they are our design engineers for this project, they are conducting a potential responsible party source evaluation to see if there are any businesses that would potentially be responsible for this project," she said."

Businesses found to be responsible for the contamination could be expected to fund the cleanup, but Denis said it's more likely that those businesses have since shut down, leaving the project to be federally funded.

Zaria Johnson is a reporter/producer at Ideastream Public Media covering the environment.