By John C. Kuehner
Plain Dealer Reporter

Saturday 10/27/01 Plain Dealer

The five-mile industrial section of the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland is supporting young fish, much to the surprise of researchers.

A draft study shows that young fish are surviving in the Flats section of the Cuyahoga River, which for years has been viewed as a barrier to fish movement because the water is stagnant, oxygen levels are low, and there is little habitat in which fish can feed and hide.

Researchers found that adult white suckers are leaving Lake Erie and swimming up the Cuyahoga River to spawn and their young are then swimming back toward the lake.

This is viewed as important finding because the goal is for the Cuyahoga to become a productive spawning ground for sport fish, such as walleye. The discovery that young fish are surviving in the Flats section of the river is an indication that cleanup efforts over the last three decades have had a positive effect on the quality of the river water.

"This means we're on the road to recovery," said Phil Hillman, a fish expert with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources who participated in the study. "It does not mean we're done yet. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we can't quit now."

While researchers found no young white suckers within a mile of Lake Erie, they felt strongly that the young fish were reaching the lake. "It's not as impenetrable a barrier as people thought it was," said Marty Hilovsky, president of EnviroScience Inc., which reviewed the data.

The results were announced Thursday to nearly 200 people at a Cuyahoga River symposium in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. While the results were hailed as good news, researchers cautioned more study is needed.

Hillman noted that while no fish were found in the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland in 1984, game fish such as muskellunge, sturgeon and rainbow trout now are being spotted.

Researchers collected 8,519 young fish at 28 locations over the past three years between Lake Erie and the Ohio 82 dam in Brecksville, said Kent State University biologist Robert Carlson.

Greater numbers of young fish were caught as researchers moved south through the navigation channel. Outside the five-mile channel, numbers increased and by Brecksville, up to 4,100 samples were caught. While 31 species were caught, the majority were minnows and white suckers, a pollution-tolerant fish.

Researchers want to find ways to improve the quality of water in the shipping channel of the Cuyahoga River - from Lake Erie to the LTV Steel Co. plant. This section is dredged and the banks are held in place by steel plates, which make it hard for fish to live, especially in the summer when oxygen levels are low.

One proposal raised by local planners in 1996 as a way to increase oxygen levels was to add a multimillion-dollar mechanical aerator system. That proposal is pending.

Contact John C. Kuehner at:

jkuehner@plaind.com, 216-999-5325