Project Summary
In partnership with the City of Brooklyn, we recently completed a significant stream and habitat restoration project along Stickney Creek within Brooklyn’s Veterans Memorial Park.
The Stickney Creek watershed covers approximately five square miles with approximately 56% impervious surface. The drainage area upstream of the project area is only 4.3 square miles. However, the watershed was mostly built out by the 1950s, when streams were ditched or placed in culverts in a belief that it would help control flooding. Currently, only two miles of Stickney Creek flow through open channels.
Upon exiting the culvert at Ridge Road, the Stickney Creek channel had been straightened, and is entrenched for approximately 600 feet. Typical of streams in urbanized watersheds, the sediment-starved water has scoured down to bedrock and is eroding the stream banks. The in-stream habitat in this reach is reduced to long, shallow bedrock riffles, and small pools at cracks or fissures in the bedrock.
Project Partners
This project is the result of several years of watershed planning and advocacy by Big Creek Connects for the stream restoration with the support of the City of Brooklyn. Big Creek Connects asked West Creek Conservancy to assist with property easements, fundraising, grant administration, and project management of the restoration. To finance the project, West Creek sought support from the Ohio EPA, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and the Clean Ohio Greenspace Program. Additional funding was acquired by the city through an ODNR Recreational Trails Program grant to enhance neighborhood connections to the park and complete a trail loop with a new footbridge across the creek (following the restoration initiative).
This restoration project was also a catalyst to an extensive Clean Ohio Green Greenspace Fund grant to West Creek Conservancy that leveraged local funds for a total of $2.1 million to protect 65 acres in Brooklyn and Parma that includes 2.5 miles of stream channel, 16 acres of wetland and critical floodplain and upland forested areas.
Outcomes and Benefits
The completed project helped to reconnect the floodplain, stabilize the bank, and enabled the connection of the trail system, connecting people to and through the park.
The project site contains 2,500 linear feet of Stickney Creek channel and approximately six acres of restored floodplain that will now prevent approximately 3.3 tons of sediment from entering the stream annually along with approximately 3.3 pounds of Phosphorus and 6.6 pounds of Nitrogen.
This project site is also immediately downstream from a floodplain restoration and sewer realignment project completed by the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. This restoration in Veterans Memorial Park further advances the current restoration efforts in the watershed.
Project Documents
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