Explore NEOH

Law student clinging to nature to stay sane. Explore Northeast Ohio with me!

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The Once and Future Forest City

The origin of Cleveland’s nickname, the “Forest City,” is disputed. Once attributed to Timothy Smead in his 1890 obituary published in the Plain Dealer, WM. Case, who served as mayor in the 1850s and the secretary for the Cleveland Horticultural Society, is generally considered the originator of the term. As mayor, Case encouraged the planting of shade and fruit trees throughout the city. Dozens of businesses throughout the region adopted the nickname, incorporating it into their own names. Many still do to this day.

Originally described by Alexis de Tocqueville as a sophisticated city among the dense forests along Lake Erie, in 2016, Cleveland’s rate of tree coverage was only a measly 19%. That is significantly lower than the urban tree canopy percentage in neighboring Pittsburgh (42%), Detroit (23%), and Cincinnati (38%). The tree canopy rate in New York (24%) is higher than that in Cleveland. Since the 1950s, Cleveland has lost over 50% of its tree canopy. Each year, the city loses an estimated 97 acres of tree canopy. 

Cleveland has attempted to implement its Cleveland Tree Plan to reforest the Forest City multiple times through the preceding decades with varying degrees of success. Recently, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and the Cleveland City Council have taken steps to establish a 15-member Urban Forestry Commission. “The Urban Forestry Commission would make policy recommendations to the mayor and council to better maintain and grow the tree canopy,” reports the Plain Dealer’s Courtney Astolfi. The plan also involves educating citizens on how best to care for trees and reestablish and preserve Cuyahoga County’s tree canopy. If successful, the plan could increase the Cleveland tree canopy rate by 40% by 2040. 

The benefits of successfully implementing the Cleveland Tree Plan are immense and far reaching. Cleveland Scene’s Bliss Davis stated that the plan could save over $20 million dollars per year by protecting municipal infrastructure and through the multitude of health benefits trees provide. The project could lead to trees absorbing almost two billion gallons of rainwater and 415 tons of air pollution, a $13 million cost reduction, each year. Furthermore, trees provide shade which reduce energy costs and generally increase property values, both together providing a roughly $8 million benefit. The additional boons to the health of local waterways and ecosystems, combatting dangerous heat domes in urban areas, and the entire Great Lakes system are innumerable.

The plan is not without controversy, though. Cleveland Metroparks’ Jody Oelbracht told me that trees can damage citizens’ real and personal property. Homeowners are responsible for clearing the trees and fixing their homes, despite the city having originally planted them, when limbs fall. Additionally, city residents are responsible for caring for the trees and any adverse effects they may have on citizens’ existing property. All these additional costs may be too much for some city residents and place an undue burden on those the city is attempting to help through the Cleveland Tree Plan. It is unfair for the city to ask citizens to foot the bill for damage caused by trees they did not plant at the expense of potentially feeding their family.

The legislation to establish the committee could be approved as early as June 6 which would pave the way for full implementation of the Cleveland Tree Plan. The new legislation builds upon the plan’s initial 2020 reintroduction by empowering the commission to make real policy recommendations, according to Mayor Bibb’s senior sustainability strategist, Fran DiDonato. City Councilman Kerry McCormack is pleased to “have an environment now to actually move progressive policy forward.” Through the successful and equitable implementation of the Cleveland Tree Plan, Cleveland may once again be rightfully known as the Forest City. However, the plan must be executed with regard for its inhabitants and ensure that they will not be unnecessarily burdened by this audacious and exciting proposal. For more information regarding the Cleveland Tree Plan, visit: http://www.clevelandtrees.org.

Astolfi, C. (2022, May 25). Cleveland to Resurrect Tree Commission. The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/05/cleveland-to-resurrect-tree-commission.html 

Case Western Reserve University. (2020, June 5). Forest City. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://case.edu/ech/articles/f/forest-city 

Cleveland Tree Coalition. (2021, June 28). Retrieved May 28, 2022, from http://www.clevelandtrees.org/2021/05/ 

Davis, B. (2022, March 30). Cleveland Tree Plan hopes to plant a ton of trees in Cleveland, make "the forest city" Green again. Cleveland Scene. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/cleveland-tree-plan-hopes-to-plant-a-ton-of-trees-in-cleveland-make-the-forest-city-green-again/Content?oid=4716965 

Skakun, J., & Olebreacht, J. (2022, May 23). Cleveland Tree Plan Introduction. personal. 

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Northeast Ohio's Confederate Cemetery

Writing about and discussing monuments commemorating the Confederacy is a difficult task, which is why I have been avoiding composing this blog post for some time now. The Atlanta History Center divides such monuments into three categories. The first refers to mainly funerary monuments, “erected from the 1860s through the 1880s.” The second era of Confederate monuments were installed during the height of Jim Crow, from 1890 through the 1930s, and consist mainly of “an equestrian statute of a Confederate general in front of a courthouse or capitol.” These were not to mourn the loss of dead soldiers, but to celebrate the deeply racist ideals central to the identity of the former Confederate States of America. They were designed to intimidate African Americans passing through public spaces and remind them of their place in Southern society. Such monuments were, “a naked forewarning to the lowest caste of its subjugation and powerlessness… a psychic trolling of the first magnitude” (Wilkerson, 336). These were shrines and threats, aimed at affirming the myth of the Lost Cause and intimidating anyone who dared defy the strict social order. Such insolence would likely mean death. The final era occurred throughout the mid 20th century in response to Brown v. Board of Education and as an ode to segregation.

The monuments on Johnson’s Island in Ohio’s Sandusky Bay perhaps bridge the first two categories. The first Confederate monument erected on the island, a bronze and granite monolith depicting a standing Confederate soldier, was dedicated by the Cincinnati chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1910. Smaller monuments were later installed, the most recent “a set of granite markers dedicated to Confederate prisoners of war,” dedicated by the UDC in 2003. But why are these monuments here, and how should we view them, today?

I drove onto the island after visiting my beloved Marblehead Lighthouse on its namesake peninsula, the rugged, quarry-ridden cape jutting eastward from Toledo into the teal waters of Lake Erie. It was a tumultuous July evening, the trees still dripping from the severe thunderstorm that just passed through, its inky clouds still visible along the eastern horizon. The amber sun, sinking farther in the western sky, merging the remaining puddles and the thick atmosphere. The humidity was extreme.

Johnson’s Island is an unusual place. To cross the causeway from Marblehead, visitors must pay a $2 toll. The island itself is roughly 300 acres and home to extravagant lakeside homes, some built within the old quarry pit hundreds of feet below neighboring residences looming above. Its most unusual feature, however, is the Confederate Stockade Cemetery, located on the island’s northeast corner, overlooking Bay Point and Cedar Point beyond. According to the National Park Service, from 1862 to 1865, the United States War Department imprisoned more than 11,500 Confederates at its facility on Johnson’s Island, which it leased from owner Leonard Johnson for $500 per year. The site, surrounded by the waters of Lake Erie, was chosen for its relative isolation. “It was easily defensible and close to rail lines in Sandusky,” (NPS) deemed so secure, in fact, that only Confederate officers were imprisoned here.

Although originally intended only to house a maximum of 1,000 men at a time, at its peak, Johnson Island’s population exceeded 3,255 in 1865. Population numbers were generally lower, however, due to the Union and Confederate armies frequently swapping prisoners of war. The prison, although more luxurious than those for ordinary soldiers, lacked appropriate sanitation, infrastructure, and food, and was frequently overcrowded. Diseases spread quickly throughout the prison and Lake Erie winters were undoubtedly harsh.

In 1864, Confederate soldiers based in Ontario attempted to raid the island. “They successfully seized two passenger steamers in Lake Erie and planned to capture the USS Michigan and use the warship to free the officers on Johnson’s Island,” (NPS) but aborted the mission. As a result, the Union strengthened its prison’s defenses, fearing possible future attacks.

After Robert E. Lee’s surrender and the Confederacy swore its oath of allegiance to the United States in 1865, the prison’s population decreased. By the end of the year, the War Department had returned control of the island to Johnson. During its time as a prison, only 239 men died on the island, their bodies buried a half mile from the original prison facility. Over 20 bodies were removed by friends and family after the Civil War and taken elsewhere. To commemorate those who remain, 206 marble headstones were erected after a group of Georgia journalists described the lack of permanent markers memorialize these men.

The Robert Patton Chapter of the UDC purchased the cemetery in 1905. Chapter leader, Mary Patton Hudson, worked feverishly to oversee improvements to the sight, including the construction of a fence around the cemetery. Her most notable contribution was the large statue of a Confederate soldier, dubbed The Lookout, created by Moses Ezekiel and dedicated in June 1910. “The [UDC] installed two monuments at the cemetery in 1925. The Mack-Hauck Memorial honors two members of the organization instrumental in preserving the Johnson’s Island cemetery” (NPS). Hudson herself was later dedicated a memorial for her effort to purchase the cemetery which was later donated to the federal government in 1931. Since then, additional granite markers have been placed in memory of Confederate prisoners of war.

Nostalgia has been described as “the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return,” (Kundera, 5) and, walking along the rows of headstones and among the ornate monuments in the cemetery on that hot July evening, I was struck by perhaps its opposite. Those who erected such memorials, however, clearly felt this way towards the Confederacy, yearning for its return. The Confederate Cross of Honor in northern soil, with initials CSA encompassing a Confederate battle flag, earnestly and shamelessly celebrates a brief instance of Confederate sovereignty, a reclamation of a place once designed to contain and irradicate it. The pedestal of Ezekiel’s statute reads and is dedicated “to those who died in federal prison on this island during the war between the states,” commemorating those Confederate officers, “dead, but sceptered sovereigns who still rule us from the grave.” The line is from Lord Byron’s Manfred, taken from a scene in which the titular character recounts the former glories of the Roman capital. He describes the “chief relics of almighty Rome,” the “ruinous perfection,” of “Caesar’s chambers, … the Augustan halls,” a place where all that remains is beautiful. “The place Became religion, and the heart ran o’er With silent worship of the great of old” (Byron). The “great of old” here is the legacy of slavery and a society built upon it. For the Confederacy, the owning of twelve generations of human chattels whose patriarchs and matriarchs were stolen from a distant continent was the state-sanctioned religion. The statue is chilling, the words inscribed within it are haunting.

Horrifying as it is, however, I think this is a monument which should be permitted to stand. It is relatively isolated and within a cemetery for America’s war dead. The statuary, although blatantly racist and clearly regaling the country’s most evil legacy, does not act to intimidate citizens in a public square like others. Furthermore, it is a physical relic of a not-too-distant past, personifying the horrors of before, which continue to echo through the modern day. This place made me think of those who commissioned and built its monuments, not with empathy or reverence, but with chilling terror. The tentacles of those who advocated something which, to me, seems almost unimaginable, poke out of the ground in this humble cemetery in Northeast Ohio. The relics earnestly bearing “CSA” really mean it, celebrating a government which actually existed in Montgomery, AL and Richmond, VA, and to which millions (and many who still) pledged their allegiance. These artifacts somehow make it real, the Confederacy: tangible, palpable, solid, and heavy, like a piece of iron in one’s hand. A prolonged southern invasion of my beloved northern home. Let this not be a place of veneration, but one bearing the scars of the past, a quiet warning of the persistence of hatred, imprisoning once more the evils of yore in a fixed position, viewable to all who venture near, but not germinating and sowing the malice, loathing, and rancor of those it commemorates, but nudging us forward to a more equitable and just future.

All photos are my own, taken on Johnson's Island, Ohio, 7/13/2021.

Top left: view of the headstones in the cemetery.

Top right: close-up view of the pedestal of The Lookout.

Bottom left: Iron Cross of the Confederacy, bearing its initials CSA with a Confederate battle flag in the center.

Bottom center: Entrance to the cemetery.

Bottom right: The Lookout.

References:

Byron, L. G. G. (2010). Manfred. Wilder Publications.

Historical introduction: Confederate monuments. Atlanta History Center. (2021, May 11). Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/learning-and-research/projects-initiatives/confederate-monument-interpretation-guide/historical-introduction-confederate-monuments/

Kundera, M., & Asher, L. (2002). Ignorance. Harper-Collins.

Manfred dramatic poem - analysis & summary. English History. (2015, April 19). Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://englishhistory.net/byron/poems/manfred-dramatic-poem/

U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Johnson's Island Confederate stockade cemetery. National Park Service. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/ohio/confederate_stockade_cemetery.html

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents. Random House.

Wilkerson, I., & Gross, T. (2020, August 4). It's more than racism: Isabel Wilkerson explains America's 'caste' system. NPR. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/transcripts/898574852

[exploreneoh]

Lake Erie Seiches

Last weekend, I took a trip to Ashtabula’s Walnut Park Beach after the strong stormfront that produced devastating tornados south of Ohio had passed to see the raging Lake Erie. Wind speeds throughout the region exceeded 60 mph. The National Weather Service issued wind and gale advisories throughout northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania. When my partner and I made it to the shore, we saw waves, at 10 – 15 feet tall, relentlessly slamming into the beach over and over again. The ferocious wind flung wet sand at us, stinging any skin we dared expose in the frigid December temperatures. The wind and waves soaked through our jackets and left us shivering and exhausted from their awesome power. This was not the strongest storm our lake has seen, not even close, and it won’t be the last. With climate change, such intense storms will likely become more common, leading to increased rates of erosion at the lakeshore, degrading existing infrastructure and damaging private property.

Such events are common on Lake Erie and her sister lakes, with the most dramatic and deadly usually occurring on Lake Michigan. A seiche, essentially a standing wave oscillating in a body of water, occurs on Lake Erie when strong sustained winds from the west push water to the east. As a result, water levels in the lake’s western basin drop while water levels in the far east, near Buffalo, rise. A seiche differs from storm surge in that the former is accompanied by “significant changes in atmospheric pressure … generating the oscillation of the water,” unique to seiches (Selbig). According to the US National Weather Service in Cleveland, such events are triggered by west-southwest winds of over 40 mph occurring for a long duration. “Once the wind stops, the seiche sloshes back and forth while it slowly calms down like a bathtub” (NWS). Water levels at Edgewater Beach in Cleveland dropped over two feet below normal levels, following the storm. Conversely, water levels in Buffalo rose much higher than average. Over the next few days, without further agitation, the water levels will rise and fall on either side of the lake, eventually returning to normal.

It is important to keep in mind that these are not the same dramatic tides as those that occur in the oceans. The Lawrentian Great Lakes are simply too small for the forces of the Sum and Moon to significantly affect water levels throughout the lakes. According to Jonathan Selbig at Michigan State University, “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Ocean Service (NOS) have proven that the spring tide, the largest tide on the Great Lakes, is less than two inches.” All other tidal changes affecting the lakes are negligible. They do not greatly affect seiches which occur on the lakes.

One of Lake Erie’s most dramatic seiches occurred in 1844, when, “a 22-foot seiche breach[ed] a 14-foot-high sea wall,” in New York. The surge ultimately killed 78 people. The lake ice, broken by the seiche, was pushed into the Niagara River. Acting as a dam, the roar of Niagara Falls was temporarily silenced as the ice blocked the river, and the falls ceased to flow. In 2008, a less severe storm caused a seiche which triggered significant floods near Buffalo.

Similar weather conditions caused strong waves on Lake Erie yesterday (12/16). It’s important to remember that, although the lakes, especially Erie, look massive, they are small enough that strong weather can greatly affect them. As climate change leads to stronger storms, Lake Erie may experience a greater number of damaging seiches with increased intensity. Above all, we must remember that the Great Lakes are wild and tumultuous places that are always changing. Although awe inspiring and beautiful, the lakes, capable of inflicting significant damage, should be respected.

NOAA's National Weather Service. (n.d.). Great Lakes Portal. Great Lakes. Retrieved December 17, 2021, from https://www.weather.gov/greatlakes/

Selbig, J. (n.d.). Seiches on the Great Lakes. Retrieved December 17, 2021, from https://project.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/seiches.htm

US Department of Commerce, NOAA (2019, March 14). What is a Seiche? NOAA's National Ocean Service. Retrieved December 17, 2021, from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seiche.html

Photo Citations:

Top left and center photos by me - Walnut Park Beach, Ashtabula, OH, 12 Dec. 2021.

Top right and bottom photos from the National Weather Service, Cleveland, OH.

[exploreneoh]

Pawpaw: the Ever-Present Ohio Fruit You've Never Heard Of

September in Northeast Ohio usually marks the finale of the abundance of midsummer produce: tomatoes, sweet corn, peppers, concord grapes, zucchini, and the beginning of our glorious annual Ohio apple harvest. A late-summer fruit that’s often overlooked however, is the pawpaw!

Adopted in 2009, the pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is Ohio’s state native fruit and pawpaw trees have populated our hardwood forests for millennia. Common in many states throughout Appalachia and the Ohio valley, the pawpaw is Ohio’s only native fruit. The trees prefer to live on the edge of forests in well-drained soil and have large vibrant tropical-looking simple leaves.

The pawpaw fruit is the largest fruit native to North America, ranging between three and six inches in length. Its skin is green, yellow, or black on the outside and contains a golden avocado-like interior pulp. At the fruit’s center are multiple dark brown seeds comparable in size to nickels. Pawpaws are extremely sweet, with flavors comparable to bananas and mangos.

I’ve been looking intently for pawpaw trees this season and have stumbled upon a few. Shown above, this pawpaw tree is at the Mustill Store Museum in the Cascade Valley MetroPark in Akron. Unfortunately, the tree was bare and there were no pawpaws to be found. There are others lining the grounds of the Highland Square Mustard Seed in Akron. I’ve also seen some very large pawpaw trees while driving south of Wooster.

I did some searching and found a man in Lakewood who operates a small pawpaw orchard out of his backyard. After class a few weeks ago, I hopped in my car and traveled north. I picked up the pawpaws and immediately smelled their ripe sweet aroma. Upon arriving home, I cut open the fruit and ate the yellow flesh with a spoon. Similar in flavor to a banana, pawpaws might be the sweetest fruit I’ve ever tasted. The texture, although soft, was neither mushy nor mealy, and incredibly smooth and silky. The flavor is strong and a little goes a long way. The fruit does not last long, even in the fridge. It is best to eat the pawpaws when they’re ripe or cut them and freeze them to use later.

Pawpaws were important sources of food for Native Americans and European settlers. In the 1500s, European traders in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys documented Native Americans harvesting and collecting pawpaws in late summer. Pawpaws are a living testament to the former Native American villages that once dotted the Ohio plains and forests. Pawpaw groves can be found near iconic Native American sites, including Serpent Mound in Southern Ohio, lingering living witnesses of the region’s former inhabitants.

For the past 23 years, the Ohio Pawpaw festival has been held annually in Albany in Southwest Ohio. The festival aims to celebrate and bring greater awareness to the pawpaw, “through delectable foods, and a full line-up of presentations and activities.” This year’s festival dates are from September 17 – 19. For more information, visit ohiopawpawfest.com. If you can’t make the drive, you can find pawpaw trees throughout the MetroParks and in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Look out for their distinct tropical-looking foliage. They often grow together in groves.

You may find pawpaw venders at local farmers markets, as well. Rainbow Gardens often sells pawpaws at their vendor station at the Countryside Farmers Market, held Saturday mornings in Howe Meadow in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. For more information, visit countrysidefoodandfarms.org.

When searching for pawpaws, I posted an inquiry on Facebook, asking friends if they knew where I could find any. My grandmother, who lives near Dayton, was surprised to see that I was interested in these fruits she perceived as antiquated and unsophisticated. She recalled stories of growing up on a farm in southern Indiana in the 1950s. She and her relatives would snack on fresh pawpaws and persimmons picked from the trees on the farm, bake them into puddings, and feed the rest to the hogs. Pawpaws, to her, seemed insignificant and reminiscent of a bygone era. Why would anyone be interested in pawpaws, today?

Pawpaws are a testament to those who came before us, those from whom Europeans stole this land, those from whom industrial manufacturing and agriculture stole this land, and those enlightened few who revered its bounties and beauty. I don’t find the pawpaw interesting so much for its contribution to gastronomy or its gustatory novelty, but rather its persistent presence throughout our region’s history. They are of this special place in a way we will never quite be, evolving over millennia for the distinct purpose of thriving here. We, in contrast, are simple visitors, an invasive species with the ability to destroy anything we encounter. Despite this, and despite us, this tree, and its strange fruit, persist and will likely carry on once we move onward.

All photos are my own.

Top left: Pawpaw tree at Mustill Store, Cascade Valley MetroPark, Akron, OH - looking for pawpaws. Couldn't find any! :(

Top center: The four pawpaws I purchased in Lakewood.

Top right: Cut open pawpaw. Delicious!

Bottom: The pawpaw tree adjacent to the Mustill Store, Cascade Valley MetroPark, Akron, OH.

References:

Bir, S. (2019, November 7). Pawpaws: America's best Secret fruit. Serious Eats. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.seriouseats.com/what-are-pawpaws-wild-fruit-midwest-how-to-prep-and-eat-pawpaws.

Koscho, B. (2020, October 15). Searching for the Pawpaw's Indigenous Roots. WVPB. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from https://www.wvpublic.org/section/arts-culture/2020-10-09/searching-for-the-pawpaws-indigenous-roots.

ODNR. (n.d.). Pawpaw. Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Retrieved September 14, 2021, from https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/portal/gov/odnr/discover-and-learn/plants-trees/broad-leaf-trees/pawpaw-asimina-triloba.

Paw Paw. Ohio History Central. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2021, from http://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Paw_Paw.

[exploreneoh]

Kent's Black Squirrel Mania

Throughout the city of Kent and neighboring municipalities, it is impossible to miss all the Black Squirrels. Aside from seeing the actual rodents scurrying around suburban yards and the university grounds, images of Black Squirrels are proudly displayed on bumper stickers and students’ tee-shirts. The nexus of the Black Squirrel mania is Kent State University which, every year, hosts its annual Black Squirrel festival, the pinnacle of Black Squirrel pride. But why all the love for this seemingly common animal?

Before researching this piece, I never knew that Black Squirrels were anything special. Since childhood, I have seen them everywhere: in my neighbors’ grass, in the forests, in trees near my home, even in urban settings. I see them at my university where they steal specks of food discarded along sidewalks and only show any kind of trepidation towards humans when you’re mere inches away from them! In my experience, Black Squirrels are brave, ornery, strong, and mini-but-mighty mammals determined to harvest and feast upon acorns and rubbish, alike. I never knew that these creatures are so special and unique to Northeast Ohio, and that they hadn’t always been here until recently.

The saga of how Black Squirrels came to Kent (and eventually proliferated through the rest of Northeast Ohio) began in 1961, when Kent State University groundskeeper superintendent, Larry Woodell, traveled to London, Ontario. There, he encountered a plethora of exotic-looking Black Squirrels. Prior to his trip to Canada, Woodell had only ever seen a single Black Squirrel once in Chardon. After conducting some research, Woodell discovered that Black Squirrels, which once thrived throughout the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Valley regions, were quickly decreasing in number in Northeast Ohio. Woodell and Davey Tree employee, “Biff” Staples, proceeded to enact “Operation Black Squirrel.” According to a 2013 Kent State University College of Education, Health, and Human Services newsletter, “[t]he pair worked with the United States and Canadian governments to transport Black Squirrels to Kent in a time period of around six months,” to reintroduce them to the region’s ecosystem. The Canadian Black Squirrels proceeded to mix with Ohio’s native squirrel population, and the initial ten quickly became hundreds.

Since the 1960s, the Black Squirrel population has sharply increased and spread throughout Northeast Ohio and the rest of the state. Benjamin Peters of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported in 2019 that the squirrels are common within the Cleveland Metroparks system and throughout Cuyahoga County. I frequently see them around Northeast Ohio, myself. Their unique coloring is a result of, “a rare genetic hiccup that can occur in any gray or fox squirrel” (Peters). Greg Smith, assistant professor of biological sciences at Kent State University at Stark predicts that, as Ohio’s forest cover increases, so too will Black Squirrel populations.

The population increase of Black Squirrels mirrors the animal’s ballooning cultural significance in the region. They are considered by many to be Kent State University’s unofficial mascot. Each year, the university hosts its Black Squirrel 5K Race and the Black Squirrel Festival, where students distribute custom Black Squirrel themed shirts and local vendors come together to celebrate the beloved creatures. The university’s student radio station is called Black Squirrel Radio. You can purchase Black Squirrel Blend Coffee from Bent Tree Coffee Roasters in Kent. Many Kent landmarks pay homage to the tiny animal: Black Squirrel Gifts and Squirrel City Jewelers in Acorn Alley are just a few. When asked about what the Black Squirrel means to her school, Kent State University student, Jenna Molinari, told me, “They’re so much fun and they… add such a unique spin on the history of our campus! I mean, everyone who comes to Kent comments on them and I just love that.”

Photo credits:

Top left: Kent Black Squirrel bumper sticker I see, like, everywhere by McKay Bricker Gallery and Framing, Kent, OH

Top right: A black eastern grey squirrel, Calgary, Alberta, 2017 by Crazyjoepaul, Wikimedia Commons

Bottom: Kent State University's Black Squirrel statue, 2020 Kent State University, Kent, OH

Kent State University College of Education, Health, and Human Services. (2013). The Connection. Kent, Ohio; The EEHS Office of Diversity Outreach and Development - Kent State University. https://www-s3-live.kent.edu/s3fs-root/s3fs-public/file/October2013.pdf.

Molinari, J., & Skakun, J. M. (2021, August 24). Cultural Importance of the Black Squirrel at Kent State University. personal.

Peters, B. (2019, July 11). Why are Kent's Black Squirrels Spreading Across Northeast Ohio? Cleveland Plain Dealer. https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2019/07/why-are-kents-black-squirrels-spreading-across-northeast-ohio.html.

[exploreneoh]

The Soundtrack of Summer

Earlier this summer, I was watching the bank swallows feasting along the Lake Erie coast near Vermilion. They made incredible acrobatic turns, flying with great precision and grace to gorge themselves on the bounty of insects just hatched from the murky banks below.

I heard it first before I saw it. The classic sound of summer, a cicada singing in the hot sun directly in front of me. Unfortunately for the insect, so too did one of the many swallows nearby. The cicada leaped from its perch in a tree, still belting its clamorous song. The copper-colored swallow’s gaze fixed upon the small creature and swooped underneath it, chasing it upward, opposite gravity. The cicada tried to fly away, but the much larger bird was no match for the miniscule insect. Its glorious song was extinguished.

There is nothing more indicative of an Ohio summer day than the sound of the cicadas calling. Although much of the southwestern portion of the state experienced the hatching of Brood X this summer, the reemergence of the periodical cicadas that only make their way to the surface every 13 or 17 years, the northeast was spared this plethoric population of small screaming insects. Sometimes called “dog-day” cicadas, an annual brood, however, reliably emerges from the earth in July and August to sing, procreate, and die, in cyclical and blunt perpetuity.

The lifecycle of cicadas, both periodical and annual, is roughly the same. They both spend most of their lives as small nymphs living underground after hatching from eggs laid in tree stems. The annuals emerge every year. The periodical stay put underground for either 13 or 17 years before returning above ground together in close synchronicity. After emerging from the ground, the nymphs shed their exoskeletons, acquire wings, and are burdened with the arduous and rather noisy task of mating. The males produce their unique clicking sound to attract females by repeatedly contracting a special tymbal muscle. A female cicada deems the most fit, and thus the individual with whom she will most likely mate, to be the one who can call the loudest and the longest in the heat of the afternoon sun. The process is thus repeated over and over again every summer.

Folklore pertaining to cicadas can be found all over the world. Perhaps the earliest example originated in China around 1500 BCE at which time cicadas symbolized rebirth for shedding their exoskeleton to uncover mature wings. According to James Deutsch of the Smithsonian Center for Folklore and Cultural Heritage, ancient Chinese “carved cicadas out of jade, placed them on a corpse’s tongue before burial, and then imagined that those deceased individuals would seemingly emerge out of their decaying bodies and achieve some sort of permanent immortality."

Cicadas are also important to the Hopi of modern-day Arizona. The Hopi claim that cicadas (maahu) first emerged on the earth’s surface from deep underground, passing the Grand Canyon as a portal to the terrestrial world. Their buzzing sound is said to contain special healing properties. A myth shared among the Philippines’ T’boli people recounts a cicada calling at twilight. His mother is the moon, his father is the sun. He is terribly afraid of losing his father as the sun sinks below the vermillion horizon. After dark, he feels abandoned and is extremely anxious and scared, so he attempts to end his life with on last endless, longing, and mournful cry. The Kapampanga people of the Phillipines also associate the cicada with twilight. Sisilim, the goddess of the dusk, is “greeted by the songs of the cicada upon her arrival” (Clark).

Conversely, cicadas are associated with the goddess of the dawn, Eos, in the Greek tradition. In an attempt to acquire immortality for her human lover, Tithonus of Troy, Eos requests his immortality from Zeus. Eos, however, was not quite exact enough with her words because, although Zeus granted Tithonus immortality, he continued to age and was not automatically granted the eternal youth enjoyed by the gods. She failed to mention this integral stipulation. While Eos remained ageless, Tithonus never died, but grew older and older, becoming a “toothless decrepitude [praying] then that he might die” (Myers, 1929). Eos proceeded to lock Tithonus in a room and “[change] him into an ever-complaining Cicada.”

Whether you love the sound of the cicadas or find it annoying, are fascinated by their bizarre exoskeletons that occasionally rest below trees in July, or are appalled by these ghastly and morbid remnants, cicadas are the definitive sound of mid-summer in Ohio. They’re both integral sources of food for Ohio’s birds and mammals and important cultural icons to many cultures worldwide. Despite the ferocity with which the periodic broods emerge every 13 or 17 years, cicadas are harmless to humans and pets and are, frankly, rarely seen for how prevalent they are. They mostly spend their days below ground as nymphs or above singing and mating in trees during midsummer. For me, cicadas are the soundtrack of the summer, a sound I look forward to hearing all year. I recommend the next time you’re outside and hear a cicada begin its call, practice a little cicada mindfulness: for the duration of the cicada call, look around and within you and try to appreciate all that there is and that you have. Reflect upon the truth that, like that cicada’s call, everything is temporary. The flowers in bloom, the heat and humidity of an Ohio summer, and even the brightness of the day will inevitably give way to the frozen barren darkness of the Ohio winter. Remember that, like Tithonus, we will continue to mature, our bodies shedding the exoskeleton of youth and giving way to older and less reliable models. We will wither like the flowers and falter like the end of the cicada call, trailing off into obsolescence. This is inevitable. It is thus imperative that we recognize and enjoy the moments, like these, of simple bliss, for one can never foresee the end or predict one’s final moment of joy.

None of these images are mine. Image credits are as follows:

Top left: Ancient Chinese jade cicadas, Smithsonian Institution, c. 2000 BCE - 220 CE, Washington, DC

Top right: Periodical cicada adult, feeding, the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Bottom: Eos pursues the reluctant Tithonus, c. 470–460 BCE, Louvre, Paris, France

Clark, J. (2020, February 1). Formation of the World: Kapampangan Mythology. The Aswang Project. https://www.aswangproject.com/formation-of-the-world-kapampangan-mythology/.

David J. Shetlar and Jennifer E. Andon. (2015, April 1). Periodical and "Dog-Day" Cicadas. Ohio State University Extension. https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/ENT-58.

Deutsch, J. (2021, May 17). Cicada Folklore, or Why We Don't Mind Billions of Burrowing Bugs at Once. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/cicada-folklore.

Myers, J. G. (1929). Insect singers: A natural history of the cicadas. George Routledge and Sons, Ltd.

[yesterdaysprint]

The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio, October 25, 1930

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With all the references to old Akron Beacon Journal articles in my recent post about West Virginian migrants, I thought I'd share this humorous scene from the same era. Thanks Beacon for chronicling the life and times of Akron and Northeast Ohio.

[exploreneoh]

Akron: the Capital of West Virginia

There are whispers of the old nickname. You hear it from the old-timers now and then. It’s woven within the pages of old newspapers. You can’t quite see it in the downtown streets or along the canal like you may once have, but the echoes linger within the neighborhoods, silent witnesses to the everchanging demographies of the post-industrial city. “The capital of West Virginia,” they call it, and no, they are not referring to Charleston. Akron, Ohio, the former rubber capital of the world, at the peak of its industrial might, was also a beacon for workers from Southern Appalachia, attracting thousands during the largest domestic mass-migration in American history. Akron, as a result, would be changed forever, both nurtured and ravished by the lure and legacy of its illustrious industrial giants.

The influx of West Virginians to Akron is a small narrative embedded within the greater history of the Great Migration. Resulting from increased personal and economic freedoms allotted to formerly enslaved African Americans after the Civil War, millions of people moved to northern cities in search of well-paying jobs and respite from the deadly racism and extreme poverty of the Jim Crow South. Scholars have primarily focused on larger cities like Detroit and Chicago, but smaller cities, including Akron, experienced similar population influxes at this time. Although migration rates from the South rose steadily throughout the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the largest wave of newcomers came during and after World War I. Akron, as a result, became the fastest growing city in the country, its population blossoming from a mere 42,728 inhabitants in 1900 to 208,435 by 1920. Unique to Akron, however, three-fourths of the city's newcomers were American-born whites (Johnson 2000, 110).

West Virginians were first encouraged to come to Akron in the early 1900s by the city's rubber companies which advertised decent wages and the promise of comfort and ease in the cosmopolitan urban north. West Virginia's best and brightest from Charleston, Parkersburg, Wheeling and elsewhere were cajoled and persuaded by newspaper advertisements promising high and consistent pay as manufacturing laborers on the floors of Akron’s booming rubber mills. Henry Florence spotted a Goodyear Tire and Rubber advert in a Parkersburg newspaper in 1911, made his way to a nearby hotel, interviewed with a Goodyear representative, and was granted a document guaranteeing him employment at the company’s Akron facility. After saving enough money, he made is way north. Rubber workers then were relatively well paid and, after two years, Florence returned to West Virginia to purchase a farm in Wood County (Jones 1941, 62-63). However, as the city’s population increased, not everyone fared as well. Akron’s overcrowding, pollution, and increasingly high cost of living proved to be too much for the many who eventually fled the city in financial ruin. Significant numbers of West Virginians frequently bounced between their homes and Akron, earning money up north and then returning south to their families while in between jobs. Such activity garnered resentment among Akronites who could not flee the city in difficult times.

Living in Akron was expensive, and housing was difficult to find. Akron residents often blamed price influxes on newcomers and immigrants. Anecdotes of boardinghouses rotating beds three times daily abound from this era. Entire families lived in makeshift tents along the canal. One report describes a family renting half of a henhouse for eight dollars monthly. Tensions rose as workers grew frustrated at their inability to acquire sustainable incomes despite working long and laborious hours in the dangerous, hot, and crowded rubber and steel mills. Perhaps Akron was not West Virginians’ “acme of all things to be desired” as it was described in the Akron Beacon Journal in 1936.

Northerners dismissed white southerners as hillbillies, a slur still common today. A boon for the rubber companies, however, in the early twentieth century, West Virginians were thought to be too wild, uncivilized, and “independently minded” to unionize. This “wildness” was blamed for West Virginia coal miners’ inability to organize into labor unions at the time. Akron's rubber companies were hoping their West Virginian workers would mimic the coal workers back home. Foreign-born laborers, in contrast, were much more likely to unionize, an example of their alleged un-Americanness, and thus proved another reason to avoid hiring immigrants. For the rubber companies to avoid the establishment of labor unions, which they perceived to be detrimental to their businesses, and assuredly on account of their own racism and xenophobia, they thought it best to hire mostly white, English-speaking (albeit southern) West Virginian laborers. But, despite the companies’ best efforts, Akron would go on to become a “union town” after major periods of labor unrest in the 1930s. Conversely, West Virginia eventually became the most unionized state in the country.

West Virginians were largely accused of inciting the unrest. "You and I know who these strike agitators are. I’ll come out and tell you in the plainest words I know. They are these uneducated tobacco chewing geetar playing hillbilly illiterates from West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee,” reads a letter sent to the editor of the Akron Beacon Journal in June 1938. The author continues by criticizing these, “hillbillies” for their allegedly shabby homes, if they even bothered to purchase one at all, their “nauseating accent,” and their unpleasant sounding Appalachian folk music. This sentiment, although shared by many, was not the dominant opinion held by Akronites of their Appalachian neighbors living and working in “their” city. Although resentment was common, most of Akron’s residents were primarily concerned with Appalachians taking what they considered to be “their jobs” and moving “back home” upon being laid off until they were called back to work.

Akron natives may also have been suspicious of West Virginian migrants for their close identification and exclusive insular bonds with others from their home state. To help integrate themselves into Akron society, West Virginians established the West Virginia Society in 1910 which aimed to cultivate a positive "relationship and closer bonds of friendship between natives of West Virginia and Ohioans" (Akron Beacon Journal, 9 April 1920). The organization persisted into the 1970s. Its picnics, speakers, and concerts attracted thousands and were major cultural events.

As the twentieth century progressed, the motivations of Akron's West Virginian migrants transitioned from the lure of economic security in the rubber mills to a desire to leave the “dire economic circumstances in their home communities” (Johnson 2000, 117). Despite Akron’s rubber economy's collapse in the latter part of the century, migration from Southern Appalachia persisted. Migration routes were firmly in place. The neighborhoods of Ellet, Lakemore, and Rittman, once epicenters for newly arrived Appalachians, preserve this legacy, today. Their development is a direct result of such migration patterns. Although many West Virginians returned home, only working in Akron temporarily, vast quantities remained in the city. Anecdotes abound, claiming that West Virginians’ three Rs are “reading, ‘riting, and the road up Route 21 to Akron” (Lamb 2021).

Despite persisting suspicions, and the too-common and egregiously false narrative depicting them as backward, poor, and uneducated wild people, West Virginians led to the growth and momentary domination of Akron as an economic titan and the world’s rubber capital. Furthermore, such manufacturing helped establish the United States as the leading military and economic force in the latter half of the twentieth century and helped the allies win both world wars. Yet, the history and numerous cultural contributions of Appalachians are often excluded from popular memory. This is yet another example of the frequent denial of historians and scholars to recognize the rich history and cultural legacy of Appalachian people in Ohio and elsewhere throughout the United States. Through this blog, I hope to highlight additional stories about how our southern neighbors have impacted Northeast Ohio and what we can learn from them. If you have any interesting stories or anecdotes pertaining to Appalachia, please leave them in the comments below. If you are a direct descendent of Appalachian migrants to Northeast Ohio, please reach out. Maybe we can put together a post totally devoted to retelling these stories and preserving our oral history. It is through sharing and documenting these stories that Appalachian and Northeast Ohio history and culture are preserved a passed on for proceeding generations.

For more Appalachian history, head to my Reading List and check out What You’re Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte (Belt Publishing, 2018). There, you will find details depicting the many hardships endured by Appalachians throughout history and analyses of stereotypes still placed upon Appalachians today providing additional context for the mass movement of people from West Virginia to Akron in the 20th century.

Image descriptions below:

Top left: Workers standing outside the main coal mine entrance, Red Star, WV, 1908. Library of Congress

Top right: Map of Southern Appalachia in relation too Akron. Johnson 2006.

Center: Rubber workers at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant, Akron, OH, nd. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co Records, University of Akron Libraries

Bottom left: Goodyear Hall from East Market Street, Akron, OH, c 1930. Source unknown

Bottom right: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Akron, OH, 1920. Source unknown

Johnson, S. (2000). How the "Rubber City" Became the "Capital of West Virginia": A Case Study of Early Appalachian Migration. Journal of Appalachian Studies,6(1/2), 109-120. Retrieved July 27, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41446454

Johnson, S. (2006). Industrial Voyagers: A Case Study of Appalachian Migration to Akron, Ohio: 1900-1940. (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation). Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

Lamb, Y. R. (2021, March 5). 'Unintended Consequences': The Rubber Industry's Toxic Legacy in Akron. Center for Public Integrity. https://publicintegrity.org/health/unintended-consequences-rubber-industry-toxic-legacy-in-akron/.

The University of Akron. (n.d.). Immigration & Migration in the Industrial Age 1870 - 1930. Black, white & Beyond: Multiculturalism in Greater Akron, an Interactive History. https://learn.uakron.edu/beyond/industrialage.htm.

[exploreneoh]

An End to the American Beech?

Last week, in the cool of the July morning, I went for a walk along the Plateau Trail on the western slope of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Located a few miles southwest of Peninsula, the Plateau Trail is an easy 4.4-mile loop trail featuring young and older-aged hardwood forest. Along the way, however, I noticed that the leaves of some juvenile beech trees looked unusual. They were dry and crackly, like a brown dehydrated fallen leaf in November, but still green and connected to the tree. I did some research, and it seems that these are among countless other Northeast Ohio beech trees suffering from Beech Leaf Disease.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Beech Leaf Disease (BLD) was first discovered in Lake County, OH in 2012, affecting primarily American beech (Fagus grandifolia) and European beech trees (Fagus sylvatica). Since then, BLD has been documented throughout Northeast Ohio and in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ontario. The ODNR describes, “dark banding on leaves, leaf disfigurement, and branch dieback,” as typical BLD symptoms, “linked to the presence of nematodes (microscopic worms) in the leaves and buds.” BLD has greatly weakened the beech understory and has led to, “extensive mortality” of young beech trees. Many details pertaining to the origin and spread of BLD are still unknown.

Upon discovery, Lake Metroparks Naturalist John Pogacnik contacted the U.S. Forestry Services and botanists at the Ohio State University and others in Europe and Asia regarding BLD. No one else had ever heard of such a disease. Meanwhile, BLD was spreading from just 510ha of Lake County forest in 2013 to 2,525ha in 2016. Similar growth patterns are visible throughout other affected areas. BLD, however, is not the only disease affecting beech trees. Beech bark disease (BBD), spread by the scale insect (Cryptococcus fagisuga), is a lethal disease that, “precedes the attack of the BBD bark fungi” (Ewing, Hausman, Pogacnik, Slot, Bonello, 2019). Additionally, the invasive beech leaf-mining weevil (Orchestes fagi) has been destroying American beech trees in Nova Scotia with greater intensity since 2012. Scientists predict that, through human-assisted and natural movement patterns, O. fagi will spread throughout the existing range of the American beech, causing irreparable damage to the species and North American forests.

Beech-maple forests are an extremely important ecosystem throughout eastern North America. Beech trees, which hold their leaves all winter long, are critical for birds and mammals that rely on them for food and shelter. The migratory red bat (Lasiurus borealis) hides among the beech leaves when it returns to Ohio in early spring. Beechnuts are an integral element in the diets of turkeys, jays, squirrels, foxes, and black bears. Furthermore, the reduction of the beech tree canopy and understory affects the light environment in forests which may greatly alter the entire eastern hardwood ecosystem. The loss of American beech trees will also be expensive to humans, leading to over $225 million lost in terms of the environmental benefits otherwise provided by existing beech trees. Although scientists are not expecting the total extinction of the American beech, its functionality as a species in eastern forests will likely wane.

In the wake of the loss of American chestnut trees (Castenea dentata) eradicated by the chestnut blight of the early 1900s, eastern forests evolved to the now dominant beech-maple ecosystem. Although many species which depended upon chestnut trees did not survive, forest ecosystems adapted just like they have for millennia. If North America does witness the end of the era of the American beech, a new ecosystem will eventually form, and forest species will largely adapt to the new forest composition. The ever changing eastern hardwood forest will persevere as always and, in the meantime, scientists will continue researching ways to stop the spread and defend against BLD and other diseases affecting American beech trees. Next time you’re hiking in the forest and notice a healthy American beech tree, savor the sight and appreciate the beech-maple forest through which you’re likely traversing. You are experiencing a constantly changing environment that never stagnates, one who's days might be numbered.

Image Descriptions: All images taken along the Plateau Trail, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Peninsula, OH.

Top left: The Plateau Trail winding through the Northeast Ohio hardwood forest

Top middle: American beech trees looking up

Top right: American beech trees looking up

Bottom left: Individual American beech with apparent effects of BLD. Dry ribbed leaves

Bottom right: Closer analysis of aforementioned individual with apparent effects of BLD

Ewing, C. J., Housman, C. E., Pogacnik, J., Slot, J., & Bonello, P. (2018). Beech Leaf Disease: An Emerging Forest Epidemic. ms, Columbus, OH. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/am-pdf/10.1111/efp.12488.

Martin, D. K., & Volk, D. (2021, January). Beech Leaf Disease. Pest Alert. https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/wcm/connect/gov/1b6ef179-92be-49d6-ab38-74ecda2ed5c5/BeechLeafDisease-USDA-FS-PestAlert-2021.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CONVERT_TO=url&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE.Z18_M1HGGIK0N0JO00QO9DDDDM3000-1b6ef179-92be-49d6-ab38-74ecda2ed5c5-nEQ-fsc.

McCarty, J. F. (2017, December 10). Beech Leaf Disease Discovered in Lake County, Spreading Throughout NE Ohio, PA, NY, Ontario: (photos, video). The Plain Dealer. https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2017/12/beech_leaf_disease_discovered.html.

Stansberry, M. (2018, October 26). A Tree Hugger's Guide to the Forest Dynamics of Northeast Ohio. Belt Magazine. https://beltmag.com/a-tree-huggers-guide-to-the-forest-dynamics-of-northeast-ohio/?fbclid=IwAR1s5hrDX732x6ucIN_HQfOJbNaQW-HClpFo-fC9h70eOF3xla5FHaEkAco.

Sweeney JD, Hughes C, Zhang H, Hillier NK, Morrison A and Johns R (2020) Impact of the Invasive Beech Leaf-Mining Weevil, Orchestes fagi, on American Beech in Nova Scotia, Canada. Front. For. Glob. Change 3:46. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2020.00046

[exploreneoh]

Water Wars: Cleveland v. Fiji

Cleveland has, from its conception, been intimately connected to water. Located where the Cuyahoga River flows into Lake Erie, Moses Cleaveland chose to place his namesake capital of the Connecticut Western Reserve here for its potential as a major western transportation hub. Even in 1796, Cleaveland envisioned what would become the Ohio and Erie Canal, with Cleveland its northern terminus. The city would go on to become a significant port, receiving raw materials for manufacturing and exporting finished goods via the lake and canal. Transportation and infrastructure grew steadily. Environmental conservation, however, was not a concern.

By the mid twentieth century, after more than a century of manufacturers disposing of unregulated waste into the river, the Cuyahoga belched greasy black pollution into Lake Erie. To visitors, Clevelanders warned, “Don’t fall into the river, or you won’t drown, you’ll decay,” only half-jokingly. Since the 1860s, over 13 fires erupted atop the Cuyahoga which, in 1969, Time Magazine reported, “oozes rather than flows.” However, after this final blaze, the American public’s outrage led to the eventual passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972. In the 50 years since, the Cuyahoga has become an exceptionally clean waterway safe for recreation and leisure. It is incendiary no longer.

Despite the Cuyahoga’s remarkable recovery, however, Cleveland still carries a stigma for its past water-related transgressions. While Clevelanders make the best of this notoriety today (Ohio City’s Great Lakes Brewing Company famously totes its Burning River Pale Ale), in 2006, Fiji Water earnestly contrasted its product to Cleveland tap water in a national advertising campaign. “The label says Fiji because it’s not bottled in Cleveland,” read the full-page magazine add. Cleveland’s water department was not impressed.

According to the City of Cleveland, Department of Water, Cleveland city water is sourced from Lake Erie, using four surface-water intake systems, “located a considerable distance offshore to protect our water from possible contamination” (Cleveland Department of Water). 90% of Lake Erie’s water flows directly from the upper Great Lakes and their respective rivers and streams while the remaining 10% comes from rain and snowmelt from within the Lake Erie watershed. Upon acquisition, lake water is filtered, disinfected, and tested nearly 300 time daily to ensure Cleveland’s water, “exceeds federal and state drinking standards.” So, when Fiji challenged the potability of Cleveland's water, the Cleveland Department of Water was galvanized to act. Public utilities director, Julius Ciaccia, ordered Fiji and Cleveland waters to be tested and compared. Both samples were similar with one small exception: while there was none measured in Cleveland’s water, the tests indicated that Fiji water contained 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per liter. The results were clear, Cleveland water was superior.

Backlash ensued from Fiji Water, whose president, Cleveland native Edward Cochran, accused the tests of lacking independence and Cleveland of artificially inflating the quantity of arsenic in his company’s water. J. Christopher Nielson, the Cleveland water commissioner, stated, “Before you take a cheap shot at somebody, know what you’re talking about.” Cochran responded by telling his home city to, “lighten up.”

It’s important to consider that Fiji water was well below the EPA and FDA’s limit of 10 micrograms per liter of arsenic and that, despite its measurement, was safe to consume. More concerning, however, is the environmental and societal cost of bottling and transporting Fiji water, which is shipped from bottling facilities all the way from the South Pacific nation to consumers worldwide. Its distinctive rectangular bottle is particularly wasteful and uses more plastic than its competitors. Additionally, the company has not stayed true to its promised figures to reforest portions of Fiji to reduce its carbon footprint. Despite its alleged concern for the environmental, Fiji Water will not meet its stated goal of becoming carbon negative until 2037. Thirdly, in 2020, 12% of people living in Fiji did not have access to clean drinking water, despite living so close to a company selling world class Fijian water throughout the world. For a company claiming to be working toward a better future, one would think Fiji Water may take into consideration the infrastructure of the country whose name graces its particularly wasteful bottles, whose culture it appropriates to appeal to international customers, and whose limited land it destroys to harvest and sell its highly profitable product abroad.

Ultimately, Cleveland tap water is clean, safe, and potable. Despite the claims of some advertisers, bottled water is nearly identical to municipal water. It is quite remarkable that throughout Northeast Ohio we have such reliable access to clean fresh water. Of course, there are outliers and many cities do not provide quality water to their residents (ie Flint, MI). Our municipalities are obligated to update long-neglected water infrastructure to ensure equitable water distribution. Next time you crave a cold glass of water, consider where your water comes from and who it may affect. What’s really in your water and what’s not in it? Fresh water is likely to become the most important commodity in the world in the coming years. Let’s do our part to consume water responsibly and not at the expense of the environment and others.

For more info regarding Cleveland's water, including the Cleveland Water Crib Cam livestream, check this link: http://www3.clevelandwater.com/your-water/lake-erie

(PS: see description of the images for credits. None of these are mine this time:

Top: Fiji Water, 2006. Iconic Advert

Left: Time, 1952. Photo mistakenly used for 1968 fire, Cleveland, OH.

Middle: City of Cleveland, Department of Water. Image of water intake system in Lake Erie, Cleveland, OH

Right: Joshua Gunter/The Plain Dealer/AP Photo, 2006. A photo of the Cuyahoga River in 1967 compared to the river in 2006, Cleveland, OH [background])

City of Cleveland, Department of Water. (n.d.). Our Source Water. Cleveland Water. https://www.clevelandwater.com/our-source-water.

The Cuyahoga's Comeback. American Rivers. (n.d.). https://www.americanrivers.org/cuyahoga50/index.html.

Fredrickson, K. (2020, February 20). The Truth About Fiji Water. Mashed.com. https://www.mashed.com/189793/the-truth-about-fiji-water/.

WP Company. (2006, July 20). Cleveland Takes Offense at Fiji Water Ad. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072000322.html.

[exploreneoh]

On a cool and sunny June day, I am paddling peacefully through miles of deciduous hardwood forest, contemplating the scenery and natural beauty surrounding me. I see great blue herons wading in the swift moving water searching for lunch and hear the rattle of a belted king fisher before he makes his killer descent into the crystalline waters below. I catch a glimpse of an osprey, its white underbelly circling ominously over head. Canada geese and mallards cruise lazily along side me. No, I’m not traversing through the Adirondacks or Acadia, I’m a few miles north of Akron on the Cuyahoga River in beautiful Northeast Ohio!

Last month, I felt the urge to more intimately connect with the Cuyahoga, the aquatic spirit-godmother of Northeast Ohio. For years I’ve hiked, run, and biked through its namesake valley and along its various tributaries, I’ve marveled at the stone structures it helped to create, and the cultural metropolises it helped to build. I absolutely love this river, which I consider to be an omnipresent maternal entity helping to guide us to a better future. When the river is healthy, we are too.

I’ve seen the Cuyahoga so many times at so many different locations, but kayaking upon it offered me a new perspective. The river takes you where it goes with utter disregard for your comfort or predetermined destination. I put-in in the Merriman Valley directly north of Akron’s Cascade Valley MetroPark and paddled eight miles north to the river access point under the Bolanz Road bridge in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. During my trip, I saw a variety of wildlife and paddled easily through various class-one rapids. I had to dodge fallen trees (a particular sycamore north of the Ira Road bridge was somewhat challenging) and maneuver through the various twists and turns of the lower Cuyahoga river. The route took me near the Akron water treatment plant which has undergone extensive updates and expansions throughout the last few years (possible future post), at the behest of both state and federal governments. Despite my proximity, I did not detect any putrid smells from the plant. I barely knew it was even there.

Paddling your local river, whether it be the Cuyahoga, Chagrin, Grand, Black, Vermilion, Ashtabula, or Tuscarawas, fosters a greater connection between you, the resident, and the river with which you have a much deeper connection than you may initially assume. Your tap water likely comes from here and your waste water, upon treatment, likely returns here. The birds at your feeders may also spend time here. Other animals you may see in your yard might drink from the river’s banks or live in a habitat it provides. It is extremely important that we protect our rivers and the ecosystems along their banks. There’s currently a political movement of concerned citizens in Akron and Cuyahoga Falls working with their respective cities’ governments to develop a plan to preserve green space around the lower Cuyahoga and the Merriman Valley. Their arguments range from climate related ones, to infrastructure, tax, and health concerns. For more information, please visit preservethevalley.com.

Kayaking the Cuyahoga was a fabulous way to spend a random Friday afternoon in June. The river is a state designated water trail, meaning that all of its nearly 100 miles are recognized by Ohio as an important recreational area. Additional put-ins and take-outs are being constructed by the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and other local park systems to provide greater ease of access for kayakers. The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway will even transport your boat for you. The river is clean and represents much of our region’s history. Additionally, it is a perfect stage to intimately view the area’s diverse flora and fauna. Get out on to the Cuyahoga river and start paddling. I promise you won’t regret it.

[exploreneoh]

Yesterday [7/14] I visited the Lorain West Breakwater Lighthouse in Lorain. Placed at the convergence of the Black River and Lake Erie, ‘The Jewel of the Port” stands at 58 feet above the water and was constructed in 1917. Although deactivated in 1965, while still in use, the light from its Fresnel lens could be seen six nautical miles away. The light was so bright, in fact, that during the night, curtains were placed on the south side of the light after Lorain residents complained that it was too bright.

Lorain was once an important port city. Located on the Lake Erie coast north of Elyria in Lorain County, Lorain’s factories attracted an influx of immigrants to the city in the late 1800s which galvanized a major population influx. Ship building and steel manufacturing were major industries along the Black River. Tanker ships moving ore from the upper Great Lakes to Ohio’s mills were integral to steel production which was then, in turn, transported to consumers via rail or ships through the lakes. The Lorain Lighthouse was thus essential for navigators entering the Lorain Harbor and sailers passing through to avoid the harbor’s break walls.

The first beacon placed at the mouth of the Black River was constructed in the early 1800s as a simple lantern at the water’s edge. Congress approved the construction of the Black River Light-Station in 1836, a cylindrical structure with a lantern room atop. Various upgrades were made until, in 1913, Congress approved the construction of, “a proper light and fog signal station for the West Breakwater Pier” (Smith, 2017). Upon completion in 1917, a temporary light was erected until the permanent Fresnel light could be installed in 1919. The fog signal, a unique sequence of a one second blast, 23 second blast, and two additional one second blasts interjected by a series of three, one, and 23 seconds of silence, sounded for the first time in the same year. After 21 years, the Coast Guard assumed operation of the lighthouse in 1938. Speaking to the Lorain Journal in 1988, former keeper Harry Seigfried said, “You got $1.10 a day to live on. So, you’d get a pound of bacon, a loaf of bread and some ground beef … It was a good life. For relaxation we’d throw a softball or fish in the summertime. … We wore bell bottoms and chambray shirts – standard Coast Guard issue… We didn’t wear any shirts in the summer. After all, who’s going to see you out there?” The steel-enforced concrete walls, ranging in thickness from 32 inches in the basement to ten inches thick on the third floor, protect the light from massive Lake Erie waves, storms, and ice. They could not, however, protect the beacon from a collision with a Canadian freighter in 1969. As a result, the lighthouse leans to the east at seven degrees. Despite the tilt, it is structurally sound.

The Coast Guard decommissioned the lighthouse in 1965, but demolition was too costly, so the lighthouse sat idle in the harbor for years. In 1977, the Lorian County Historical Society acquired the deed for the lighthouse, which was promptly named to the National Register of Historic Places in the following year. Since then, the lighthouse has become a nonprofit and operates under the Lorain Lighthouse Foundation. Volunteers shuttle passengers through the harbor to the lighthouse for an hour tour of the five story structure. The foundation also offers a catered sunset dinner at the lighthouse and a 4th of July party where guests can view on-shore fireworks from Lorain and neighboring municipalities. A volunteer at the light told me, on clear nights, he can see the lights from Leamington, Ontario glowing on the horizon from the top floor of the lighthouse. For more information, please visit lorainlighthouse.com.

The Lorain Lighthouse is an exquisite example and relic of Ohio’s rich nautical past. Although no longer operational, the light still shines at night and can be seen from Avon Lake and Vermilion. The beacon is an important landmark for recreational boaters and beachgoers along the coast. Through the works of the Lorain Lighthouse Foundation, the light will shine for many years to come, acting as a beacon to Lorain’s history and its bright future.

Johnston, L. (2018, September 19). Know why the Lorain lighthouse leans? A ship hit it. See where on a tour. Rock The Lake. http://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2018/06/know-why-the-lorain-lighthouse-leans-a-ship-hit-it-see-where-on-a-tour/.

Smith, V. (2017). The History of the Lorain Lighthouse 1917-2017. Lorain Public Library System. https://lorainlighthouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lorain-Lighthouse-History-1917-2017.pdf.

[exploreneoh]

Took a trip to Springfield Bog MetroPark near Mogadore in Summit County this morning (5/6/21). The park is particularly interesting for multiple reasons, chief among them is its precarious geographic location. Straddling the continental divide which separates the Mississippi River and Great Lakes/ St. Lawrence River watersheds, depending on where you are on the 1.8 mile loop trail, if you spill your water, it may find its way to the North Atlantic by way of the Cuyahoga River and the Great Lakes system or into the Gulf of Mexico via the Tuscarawas, Muskingum, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. The park has been restored by Summit County MetroParks in the last few decades. What was once a humble corn field is now a prospering prairie ecosystem full of native flowers and grasses typical of other prairies which once existed along the continual divide and adjacent to similar acidic bogs. While not yet at peak bloom, the prairie was teeming with life. I saw grasshoppers, butterflies, meadowlarks, gold finches, swallows and a plethora of other birds and insects engaging in the daily ritualistic chorale of Northeast Ohio in July among the blooms.

In this blog, I hope to share my experiences within and reflections upon Northeast Ohio’s natural spaces. A city and surrounding communities once known for its manufacturing glory, often at the expense of the natural landscape, Cleveland and its satellites no longer provide for the nation’s industrial needs. Along with the regional economic adjustment came a new public understanding and consciousness regarding the many benefits posed by natural public spaces. The Cleveland and Akron area now hosts among the finest metro parks systems in the country. Tranquil and fragile riparian ecosystems, dark green hemlock groves, and pristine and protected acidic wetlands are easily accessible to hundreds of thousands of area residents who may recreate in these spaces as they like. This, in turn, fosters a greater appreciation for these places and the desire among park-goes to preserve similar spaces for similar activities. Explore NEOH will share those stories and more, arguing through narrative experiences why such places must be protected and how we can use these special places to enrich our individual lives and communities.