Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Hi Les & Cathy!
Yes, AS&W was one of the last users of the canal water. So was Wilson Feed mill. I remember the old wheel spinning in the canal. We would by dog food there.

Great idea to isolate the canal at a lock and manually fill it with fire hoses. I feel the Brecksville dam should go away and let mother nature do what she does so well. Did you see the PD article today about bulkhead "fish habitats" along the Lower Cuyahoga's towpath trail?

The Great Republic was sailing down river at about 5am today. I saw a lake boat a few miles out yesterday. I think it was the Manistee.

Bob V. has laid up his boat and is staying warm now.

My Son just got his first real post graduate job. He is going to be working for the Government.


Cheers
b

Hi, Beecher.

As an added bit of info, the water supplied by this dam was used for a Cuyahoga wire mill (American Steel and Wire?)

Their intake pumping station is at the end of the watered canal on the Canalway Metro Park reservation, and to the best of my knowledge, is no longer used.

The Cuyahoga Valley NP uses the water to demonstrate lock operation, but IMHO could isolste the lock so they could still do this and refill from fire hoses

The need for the canal to have flowing water is a low priority in my humble opinion. We go months at a time when the gates are closed and maintenance & capital projects are performed on the canal all summer long. Not one of the visitors to this National Park seems to mind. (BTW- this NP has one of the highest visitation rates in the nation.)

The canal passage went all the way to the Ohio River in its heyday. Much of it was destroyed by flooding and especially the last straw in the Great flood of 1913. Most of all the locks are preserved to this day. But in many cases the river water will never be re-introduced into the canal above the B'Ville Dam because it will not retain the water from all the flood damage of yesteryear.

The canal only has a historical purpose. Feeding the last section from the B'Dam creates a flow that is discharged into the Cuyahoga River about 13 miles down stream and about 2-3 miles above the Lower Federal Navigation Channel. Roads were built right across the canal by filling it in at that point. The Canal becomes a long lake North of this point and is stocked with game fish. Many folks fish there. It ends/disappears as it nears Alcoa & Harvard Avenue.

I feel the dam can go away. They can fill the canal with water like a bathtub and have a much, much less flow. I believe they can control the outflow to a trickle thus only needing little make-up water from the dam area. Tinkers Creek and other creeks can help as well. It is not rocket science.

The #1 trouble IMHO is the Feds and the EPA maintaining their budgets.

We also had lives lost at this dam. In flooding conditions it will not release anything including swamped canoeists and Fire & Rescue personnel multiple times. I have witnessed the recovery of such a fate. The dam will also not allow the fish back to where they use to thrive. Did you see that fish in Guest2's video! That is what I'm talkin' about!

The wild game in the Valley includes just about anything. We have large wild cats, stray bear, enough deer to feed Africa's hungry, beaver, water fowl, American Bald Eagles and any other raptor you can name. Why can't we restore one of their natural food sources and rip out the dam dam. As for using a new method for repairing/replacing the bulkheads of the Lower Cuyahoga, I am all for the cheaper method because the fish are doing just fine leaving the urban section and finding habitat above it.

Just sayin'.

Beecher. Interesting. The USACE recently started a new/improved low head dam project on the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana. When completed, an additional 165 miles of river will be open to spawing fish for the first time since the original dam was constructed in 1905. Fish headed downstream were often diverted into the irrigation canal system and sometimes ended up in fields. See here for an overview of the project - http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/ncer2011 ... endsen.pdf

If such a project can be accomplished on a river as large as the Yellowstone, I don't see why it couldn't work on the Cuyahoga.

I am attempting to insert a link to a short YouTube video for the Brecksville dam. I'm not sure if I'm sending the right embed info to Boatnerd for the YouTube video to be included into this post. The fish caught at the dam in the video is big. The biggest fish I ever hauled in from Lake Erie was a walleye. The Brecksville dam fish is bigger. The YouTube link is.

The dam enables feedwater to the Ohio & Erie Canal. The water from the canal was last used commercially in the early 70's. You can see it on Google maps. It is under the US rt 82 bridge.

Beecher - I have never been up the river that far. What purpose does the Brecksville Dam serve?

Hi Toledo,
There are lots of viewpoints for any issues of the lower Cuyahoga with the six miles of Federal navigation channel. It does have sheet piled bulk heads. Much of it needs repair that has been deferred. One way is to replace like for like and another proposal is to use another method of construction that includes the "habitat" provision. It depends on what funds they are seeking.

The river above this short section has all the habitat the fish need. I feel the Brecksville dam inhibits the fish's natural habitat worse than the bulkheads of the lower section. The fish have no way to get around the dam with any ladders or such. Game fish that are Fish Ohio certified are being caught in front of the dam. I wish they could enable them to get to the other side somehow because the National Park system above the dam would sure treat them right.

Excuse me for using the term spawning areas. It is another senior moment for me discovered after posting. The correct wording is lack of habitat areas for fish in the Cuyahoga River. Creating a habitat for fish in the river using the steel retaining walls has the same benefit for marine life in the river as the many habitat areas on southern Lake Erie shores provide for the waterfowl migrations.

As a neighbor and visitor, I love everything about Cleveland. For the fishery in the Cuyahoga River, I remember another post, or a news story, that the difficulties for the Cuyahoga fishery are not with the quality of the river water. Instead, the river fishery suffers from the lack of any spawning areas along either side of the Cuyahoga River because of the concrete and sheet metal retaining walls. The simple fix was for a few holes to be cut into the steel retaining walls for fish spawning areas.

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park was formed in the 70's. They have had every type up cleanup team working on all that property from here to Akron as they claimed properties. The fish go all the way to Brecksville, Ohio (State Rt 82) where there is a dam built to feed the early 1800's Ohio and Erie canal. Game and trophy fish are being caught in the river all the way up to there. Parts of the old canal near the Steel Mill are being stocked as well.

The Brecksville Dam on the Cuyahoga has been talked about for removal but there are those that feel it will disturb too much old toxic sediment. I feel they are waiting for it to fail on its own. They have had their fair share of drownings there including fire/rescue personnel at that dam. It is one scary dam when the river is up. We played there as dare-devil kids years ago.

Yes, that river has come a long way since the 60's and 70's when you could walk across it or when the boats had fire watch posted while sailing on the river.

Cheers,
b

The last time I was up the Cuyahoga was in late '78. At that time, there were fish as far up as Superior Ave - only saw dead ones floating, but they were making it at least that far.

Yes, taconite & I've heard there is a small fish called a shad or an alowife (sp) that the boats passage stirs up. I've seen it happen many times in Huron. Mike

Yes.
Taconite.

Thanks. Your picture makes me wonder about the river. In the fifties we never saw any gulls near the river, probably due to all the crtud that was in it. Is the river now clean enough to attract anything that the the gulls would eat - fish etc? What brings them upriver?

Yes. The Buffalo is the Cuyahoga's river rat these days. I see her about every 9 hours. She attracts the flying rats this time of year. I have learned her whistle quite well.
Cheers
b

Are there currently any boats engaged strictly in shuttling ore from lakefronts to upriver mills?