That the Cleveland Metroparks are a shining asset to our communities is one of those rare things that almost every Northeast Ohio resident can agree on. Everyone has complaints about how our cities and other institutions are run, which is obviously not unique here but is true anywhere, but the Metroparks? I've heard people say that everything they touch turns to gold, and if you remember what Edgewater Beach was like before the Metroparks took over, it's easy to see why.
In my very first post on this blog, I briefly mentioned the man-made pond at Garfield Reservation where the Metroparks recently did a restoration to once more allow people to enjoy this historic body of water. The fact that they did this is a clear example of how people who are experts at managing parks recognize the very high value that bodies of water bring to the human experience of spending time in a park.
There are two other Metroparks at which notable restoration projects have happened in recent years, and looking at those projects does even more to illustrate this principle. Those parks are Acacia Reservation in Lyndhurst and Hinckley Reservation in Hinckley. Let's journey to the parks and see the dramatic differences in park restoration philosophy between a nationally recognized public park system and a stormwater management utility with no track record of successful park creation.
Acacia
Acacia Reservation is a park created on the site of a former golf course. It's a nature restoration project in the truest sense of those words. Notably, it contains three man-made ponds, all of which were preserved and improved as park features, not removed.
Cleveland Metroparks turned to nature restoration company Biohabitats for the Acacia project. Biohabitats' page describing the project is an interesting read, as it's reminiscent in many ways of how the Sewer District has described their proposed Horseshoe project. However, when we look into the details, we see some key differences between the projects.
The description begins, "A 100-year-old golf course is transformed into a 155-acre park that regenerates local ecology, enhances wildlife habitat, reconnects people to the landscape, and builds upon one of the most interconnected urban park systems in the United States."
One thing I'm immediately struck by here: the description of a 100-year-old golf course being transformed into a 155-acre park is echoed by the Sewer District's PR statement that they'll be transforming a 6-acre park into a 60-acre park at the site of Horseshoe Lake. But whereas the first description is true - a golf course that was not a public park was transformed into a 155-acre public park - the second description shows a woeful misunderstanding of the park being transformed. It's technically true that there is a 6-acre city park next to Horseshoe Lake called "Horseshoe Lake Park," but the entire 60 acres are already public parkland and have been for more than a century.
 |
Another thing that jumps out: the statement, "Cleveland Metroparks wanted to restore the property to a natural state." Note that this says, "a natural state." It does not say, "its original, natural state," as Sewer District PR about their Horseshoe project says.
This might seem like a subtle distinction, but I'd argue it's an important one.
People who do nature restoration projects are well aware that the projects don't restore the places to the same way they were before humans altered them, because this is impossible. Members of the Sewer District project team acknowledged as much to me in a conversation. The Acacia master plan explicitly makes this point: "Acacia Reservation will never return to its pre-golf ecological condition, but our vision is to optimize the ecological function and human benefits derived from this property."
(Note: "ecological function and human benefits." "Stormwater management," which is what the Sewer District does, is also one of the stated goals of the Acacia project, but the human experience of spending time in a park wasn't sacrificed to achieve that goal.)
(Also note: in the case of Doan Brook, where the original natural state for thousands of years up until the century before the Shakers arrived would have had beaver dams and ponds, the idea that a brook with man-made stream channels and no dams or water bodies is the "original natural state" is especially silly.)
"Stream restoration" is a valid term for the proposed Horseshoe project, but "original, natural state" is pure PR spin and wholly divorced from reality. Yet because people find it appealing to think the space is being returned to how it was before Europeans arrived, it's effective PR spin. See, for example, this comment on a Sewer District Facebook post about the Horseshoe project:
This hopelessly naive sentiment was liked by the Sewer District's PR account plus 17 other people.
A recent visit to Acacia and look through the park's master plan gave a lot of insight into how the Metroparks created a space for humans to enjoy while also achieving the project's other goals. The three man-made ponds exemplify this.
The Northeast, Northwest, and Central Ponds are all man-made ponds that flow into Euclid Creek. Upon examining the site pre-restoration, Biohabitats reported, "In general, the ponds are not high quality features and do not provide good natural habitat or water quality functions."
So you're doing this nature restoration, and the site has these man-made (i.e., unnatural) ponds that don't currently provide great habitat or water quality. What should you do with them? Should they even exist?
Remember, these ponds don't have any great historical significance and aren't widely beloved community assets. If the restoration plan was going to remove one or more of the ponds, you wouldn't have seen a big "Save the Acacia Ponds" movement with yard signs and a petition signed by 4,300 people and counting. Most people wouldn't have cared.
But removing these man-made water bodies doesn't seem to have been a consideration, which makes sense, because anyone who knows anything about human nature and park design knows that bodies of water greatly enhance the human experience of spending time in a park. Instead, the approach was to improve the existing ponds: "This strategy is intended to meet a primary goal of this restoration master plan, to provide for enhanced visitor experience [emphasis mine] while focusing on ecologically driven solutions for pond enhancement. The basis of this strategy includes an overall focus on restoration of ecological function of the three pond habitats for water quality improvement, fish habitat enhancement, wildlife habitat provision and associated natural buffer functions."
The ponds at Acacia only have a tiny fraction of the importance to the space as the Shaker Lakes have for their parks, but they were retained and improved because it would enhance visitor experience in the park. Taking a park that has a historic lake as its centerpiece and redesigning it to not have a lake at all, not even a smaller lake, is certainly a bold choice.
Near the Northeast Pond, I noticed a very interesting sign.
My jaw actually dropped at the irony of seeing the Sewer District's logo proudly displayed on a sign that uses the phrase "man-made pond" in a completely neutral way, and describes interventions made to improve water quality in a man-made pond. During the Shaker Lakes fiasco, Sewer District fans have essentially turned the term "man-made" into a pejorative when used to describe bodies of water. The Shaker Lakes being man-made and problems with water quality are both cited as reasons to get rid of the lakes. And here's this sign, probably created before this mess started, just innocently standing there and telling us that it's possible to alter a man-made body of water to benefit wildlife and improve water quality as part of a nature restoration!
The Northwest Pond is especially interesting to consider, because it's actually formed by an earthenware dam similar in size to the Shaker dams. It's a class II dam (if you happen to look at the Acacia master plan and see it described as class III, that's a mistake), suggesting the possibility that the Shaker dams could be modified down to class II without losing too great an amount of the lakes' footprints. Also, according to publicly available dam inspection data, it has the same condition rating as the Lower Lake dam - that is, it currently needs significant work done to get it in compliance with modern dam regulations.
It's a nice pond, especially the part that isn't directly adjacent to busy Richmond Road.
It's not nearly as nice a feature as the Shaker Lakes, though. You can't walk around it, and there wouldn't be any feasible way to change this, because the west shore directly abuts a busy road and the north shore is private property.
Interestingly, the Acacia master plan gives a direct example of the differences between how a man-made water feature is viewed by the Sewer District vs. by the Metroparks!
"The Northwest Pond has been identified by NEORSD to be a potential retrofit opportunity as a dry detention basin to help manage stormwater runoff.... this recommendation is not fixed in stone since use is up to the owner, now Cleveland Metroparks. Therefore, Cleveland Metroparks may enhance the pond for fishing."
The Sewer District, viewing the pond through a stormwater management lens, had recommended removing the pond. The Metroparks, viewing the pond through the lens of what would make a good park, retained and improved the pond. Indeed, they stock the pond with fish so people can better enjoy fishing there, an activity people also like to do at Lower Shaker Lake.
Elsewhere in the park, there's a sign about tree planting:
"Forest habitats are vital for preventing flooding, reducing erosion, and maintaining clean air, but forests take a long time to grow!" the sign says.
Indeed, forests do take a long time to grow, one of the reasons that people are so upset about the Sewer District making a plan that requires cutting down more than a thousand trees and not mentioning this aspect of the plan during "public engagement." This sign at Acacia says that "thousands of trees" were planted as part of the Acacia project. If we look at how the park has changed over the years since it was a golf course, it's a really impressive transformation:
You can also notice that few existing trees were removed. So at Acacia, we have thousands more trees than were there previously. At Horseshoe Lake, if the project happens, hundreds of large, mature trees will be replaced with tiny saplings, and the total number of trees will decrease (see my previous post for an explanation of how the tree removal/planting numbers provided by the Sewer District hide this fact), so there will be a huge reduction in the total tree biomass.
This chart summarizes some key differences between these two restoration projects:
|
Metroparks |
Sewer District |
|
Acacia Reservation |
Proposed Horseshoe project |
|
Transformed a golf course into a nature park |
Would transform a historic public park into a radically different park |
|
Acknowledged that restoration of original, natural state is impossible |
Falsely claims to be restoring original, natural state |
|
Three man-made ponds that previously had little value for nature or for human enjoyment: retained and enhanced to benefit humans and nature |
Beloved, historic lake: would be removed when preservation and enhancement are also possible |
|
Huge increase in tree cover that will continue to grow with time |
Huge decrease in tree cover that would take decades to recover |
The Acacia Reservation example clearly demonstrates that man-made water bodies are not incompatible with nature or with a nature restoration project, and such a project can improve, rather than remove, the water bodies to benefit both humans and nature. It also demonstrates that people who are good at creating and maintaining popular parks recognize the value of bodies of water in those parks.
A possible objection is that the Acacia project did not require expensive dam renovation projects to maintain the ponds, and the cost/benefit calculus might be different if it did. In response, I would make several points:
1. The Northwest Pond's dam is currently out of compliance with the same listed condition as the Lower Shaker Lake dam, and will require significant work to get it in compliance, although I can't comment on what the scope of that project might be or when it might happen.
2. At the Shaker Lakes, stream restoration projects will also be very expensive, perhaps even more expensive than options restoring smaller dams that the Sewer District never explored. A lot of money will have to be spent either way, so let's make sure we're getting the best result for our communities.
3. In the long run, removing the Shaker Lakes will in all likelihood be more costly to the cities, due to the inevitable negative impact on tax revenues after loss of such valuable community assets.
Those are all points to consider, but to more directly address the issue of dam restoration to preserve a man-made lake, we should journey to another location in the Metroparks.
Hinckley
Hinckley Lake is a man-made lake at Hinckley Reservation in Medina County. The lake is formed by a nearly century-old dam on the Rocky River that was built by the Metroparks for the specific purpose of creating a recreational lake. It's a larger dam and vastly larger lake on a larger waterway than the other dams mentioned in this post.
Here's a table comparing basic stats for the four dams I've mentioned:
|
Dam |
Height (feet) |
Length (feet) |
Max water storage (acre-feet) |
In compliance with regulations? |
|
Horseshoe Lake |
30 |
615 |
155 |
No |
|
Lower Shaker Lake |
17 |
600 |
178 |
No |
|
Acacia |
38 |
530 |
148 |
No |
|
Hinckley Lake |
40 |
750 |
1,574 |
No (prior to Metroparks restoration) |
If you're making the argument that dams, as a general matter of principle, should be removed because they disrupt the natural flow of water and are therefore bad for the environment, it's hard to make that argument for the Shaker dams and not make it for the more significant and impactful Hinckley dam.
Similar to the Shaker dams, the Hinckley dam was out of compliance and needed a lot of work to get it up to modern standards. Another option to consider might have been dam removal. Hinckley Lake is a place where many people love to go to enjoy time in nature and various recreational activities. Naturally, the Metroparks did not remove the dam, but instead undertook a recently completed restoration project. Cleveland Magazine published an article about the project last month: Cleveland Metroparks Unveils a New and Improved Hinckley Lake
If you read the article, you might notice that nowhere does it mention any sort of controversy about whether the lake should continue to exist. If you don't run a PR campaign to try to convince people they need to remove a historic lake from a popular public park, very few people will argue that you should.
Hinckley Lake was drained in 2023 and remained in that state for two and a half years, during which time it was dredged and the dam was modernized. The whole project cost $12 million. Meanwhile, Horseshoe Lake has sat empty since 2019, and in that time the Sewer District has already spent $5 million of ratepayers' money just to create a plan that has sparked public outrage, and also to run PR for that plan.
Think about that. They're taking money we paid them and using it to create a plan that will make our cities less desirable places to live and to try to sell that plan to us.
The article about Hinckley mentions, "Visitors can rent kayaks, stand up paddle boards, canoes and paddle boats for anywhere from $25 to $45 per hour." Many years ago, there was a canoe club at Lower Shaker Lake that folded in the 1970s. In the last few decades, activities like kayaking and standup paddleboarding have surged in popularity. One day a year, there's a popular Take to the Lake event at Lower Lake, run in partnership with the Metroparks, when people can enjoy these activities.
What if people could kayak, canoe, and paddleboard on Lower Lake, including with rental watercraft, throughout the summer? How amazing would it be to have something like that on such a beautiful lake in the middle of a densely populated residential area and that would be accessible to such a diverse population?
“We’re so lucky to have that as an amenity and as an option for recreation here in the Cleveland area,” a Metroparks spokesperson is quoted as saying about Hinckley. We are, but Cleveland Heights residents have to take a 45 minute drive to visit Hinckley Lake. What if we could walk or ride bikes or take a very short drive to enjoy those same activities in our neighborhood?
Honestly, I feel like it would be stupid not to at least explore the idea of making this happen.
It would make an already valuable amenity an even stronger draw encouraging people to live in and spend time in the Heights. In contrast, replacing the lakes with constructed streams would erase most of that value, no matter how much Sewer District supporters want to pretend otherwise.
General thoughts about dam removal
I'm a scientist, and it's very important to me to reckon with all the important data about an issue, not just cherrypick the data that support my own view. I'm well aware that dams do have real negative impacts on waterways. I'm not going to pretend that isn't true. Almost all human-made structures have negative impacts on the environment.
In a city full of buildings and pavement and cars and monoculture lawns where there used to be forest, fixating on earthenware dams as an especially urgent threat that simply must be removed seems odd. If someone proposed bulldozing lake removal advocates' homes and reforesting the land, they might object. The lakes are a big part of what makes this place home for so many people.
To minimize negative environmental impacts from human activity, the best course of action would likely be to engineer the extinction of the human race, but that's definitely not my preferred course of action.
The negative impacts that dams have must be weighed against their benefits. This has to be done on a case by case basis. Saying that dams should always be removed is just as misguided as saying that dams should never be removed.
The Cleveland Metroparks have removed dams in recent years, but they were low-head dams that didn't form bodies of water (here's one example). They were dams that had previously powered mills that no longer existed, and had no other purpose, and as a consequence no longer had any real value to humans. In such a case, the cost-benefit analysis is pretty simple; the negative impacts clearly outweigh the negligible positive impacts.
On the other hand, the Acacia and Hinckley dams are just two examples of dams in the Metroparks that form bodies of water that people enjoy. There are a number of others, including multiple lakes and ponds in the Mill Stream Run and North Chagrin Reservations.
I haven't seen any movements to remove those dams.
It's a point I've made before, but I'm not going to stop making it because I think it's really important: working to specifically remove man-made lakes that are in very walkable residential neighborhoods and can be enjoyed by so many people without traveling far from their homes, while other man-made lakes continue to add value to various other more car-dependent places, strikes me as being the opposite of environmentally aware.
For some dams, the benefits of their existence clearly outweigh the harms; for some, the harms clearly outweigh the benefits; for some, there's a reasonable debate about whether they should exist. But let's be clear: there's no world in which the benefits outweigh the harms for the Green Lake dam, a dam forming a semi-private lake on Doan Brook that the Sewer District already restored, but the benefits don't outweigh the harms for the historic Shaker Lakes. That world simply does not exist. And to be told that there's some ecological imperative to remove the Shaker Lakes after seeing the Sewer District restore the Green Lake dam and tout its benefits as a community asset honestly feels like gaslighting.
I've seen accusations that people who want to preserve the Shaker Lakes don't care enough about the environment or are even science deniers. Those who say these things are entitled to their opinions, but it must be understood that they're implicitly also saying that the Cleveland Metroparks don't care enough about the environment or are science deniers. Good luck trying to make that argument.
Also, as a scientist, I find it amusing but also a little offensive when people who don't have any background in science and little understanding of how science works try to paint the movement to preserve the lakes, a cause supported by a number of community members with scientific backgrounds, as anti-science. The reality is, this is a very multifaceted issue and science cannot give us a clear answer on what to do.
Science cannot answer the question of whether negative impacts that dams have on watersheds outweigh positive effects that bodies of water have on human well-being. Not to mention the benefits to wildlife habitat that well-managed water bodies can have, as that sign at Acacia with the Sewer District's logo tells us. That sort of habitat was greatly reduced when human eradication of beavers led to natural streams with beaver dams being replaced with less natural "free-flowing" streams.
No one on any side of the Shaker Lakes issue should try to say that science conclusively supports their view. I would argue, though, that labeling your opponents as anti-science in a debate where there is no scientific consensus and never could be one is, in fact, an anti-science behavior. Someone who says this while trying to present their opinion as demanded by science just doesn't have much credibility.
Man-made bodies of water are a ubiquitous feature of parks. Perhaps this is in part our attempt to fill the void left by our eradication of beavers. I would love it if we could bring beavers back everywhere and enjoy beautiful beaver ponds rather than beautiful man-made lakes. Until that happens, perhaps human dam engineers can take some lessons from beavers, the original and still best watershed engineers, on designing dams to be more environmentally friendly.
But just getting rid of the blue spaces that bring so many tangible and intangible benefits to human lives? That's not an option that anyone with a good understanding of human nature and park design would consider. The people in charge of the Cleveland Metroparks, very successful park stewards for a long, long time, have that understanding. The people in charge of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, a public utility devoted to stormwater management above all else, appear not to have it.
Many people have suggested the Metroparks take over the Shaker Lakes. That sounds like a great idea, although it's not certain whether they want to do it.
Whether or not that happens, I submit that, in making plans for the future of historic parks that are such valuable assets to our community, we should follow the example set by one of the nation's best municipal park systems. We shouldn't cede control to a stormwater management utility with no demonstrated ability to create or run successful parks. I think that's just common sense. Isn't it?
Comments
Post a Comment