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Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant improves soil, helps protect water quality in Ohio

Tractor with spader after decompaction was completed on July 22, 2022. Courtesy photo by Cleveland Metroparks.
Tractor with spader after decompaction was completed on July 22, 2022. Courtesy photo by Cleveland Metroparks.

 

A $193,500 USDA Forest Service Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant is helping maintain and improve water quality in Euclid, Ohio. The grant to Cleveland Metroparks is allowing partners to plant trees, reduce soil compaction and enhance a riparian buffer along Euclid Creek. 

Cleveland Metroparks is the grant recipient and leads the project operations. The GLRI grant provided all the funding for the trees and herbaceous plants, plus rain gardens and deer fencing, and funds for the contractors to plant trees.

Euclid might not be a well-known community, but the nearby Cuyahoga River was once so polluted it made international headlines in the late 1960s through 1970s when it caught fire at least 14 times.

Euclid students planting the project’s first trees on May 5, 2023. Courtesy photo by Cleveland Metroparks.
Euclid students planting the project’s first trees on May 5, 2023. Courtesy photo by Cleveland Metroparks.

Teri Chuprinko, the USDA Forest Service grant monitor for the project, said the river has improved considerably since the ‘70s. “Today, the river can sustain fish and other wildlife. Organizations like Cleveland Metroparks are restoring riparian buffers and reducing stormwater runoff in the watershed to help maintain and improve water quality.”

The Euclid project is at the site of a former middle school with a sports complex that caused the soil to become heavily compacted after decades of being under the pavement and structures there. As part of the project, Cleveland Metroparks purchased a soil spader — still being put to use by cooperators on other projects around Cleveland — to decompact and amend the soil, which has been shown to greatly improve tree planting, survival and growth.

Read more about the project