Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday the state will contribute $25 million towards the Cuyahoga River Gorge Dam Removal Project.
The project will remove the last remaining dam on the lower Cuyahoga, restore more than a mile of river access for community use, while also reestablishing fish and wildlife habitat. An estimated 900,000 cubic meters of contaminated sentiment from the river will need to be removed from behind the dam before it's dismantled according to a news release.
“Improving water quality across the state has been a key focus of my administration, and generations of Ohioans will benefit from the improvements that will be realized by removing the Gorge Dam,” DeWine said in the release. “This project will return the Cuyahoga River to a free-flowing river from Kent to the mouth of Lake Erie, will vastly improve water quality in the Cuyahoga River, and will pave the way for recreation, tourism, and economic development opportunities in this area."
Constructed in 1913, the 58-foot-tall and 425-foot-wide dam was used for hydroelectric power generation until 1958.
The state funding will come from a money received from Ohio’s polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) case against Monsanto brought by DeWine in 2018 when he was Ohio Attorney General, the news release stated. The lawsuit was settled in March 2022 and held Monsanto legally accountable for harm caused by the concealment, failure to warn, marketing, manufacturing, sale and distribution of PCBs – industrial chemicals that were banned in the U.S. in 1979.
“This project has been the focus of efforts by many local, state, and federal partners for decades,” Ohio EPA Director Laurie A. Stevenson said in the release. “Providing this state-match funding from the Monsanto settlement will enable us to make the completion of this significant project a reality. We thank our partners on the PCB Advisory Board, including ODNR, ODH, ODA, and the Ohio Attorney General for their support on this project.”
The Ohio EPA and the Ohio Lake Erie Commission is partnering with the U.S. EPA, Summit County, the cities of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls, Summit Metro Parks and others on the project, according to the release.
At a November community meeting, Summit Metro Parks estimated that the cost of removing the Gorge Dam would be $20 million. However, before the dam can be taken down, a disposal area for sediment trapped behind the dam will need to be built and a sediment remediation project needs to take place. That part of the project is estimated to cost $100 million, with 65% of funding coming from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) and 35% coming from the state. The sediment remediation is projected to begin in 2024.
At last month's community meeting, Summit Metro Parks said demolition of the dam itself is tentatively set for 2025 to 2026.
