Dike 14 Nature Preserve is an existing 88-acre former dredge disposal site that has become an extraordinary wildlife haven adjacent to Gordon State Park/Cleveland Lakefront State Park at the northern end of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio. Over the years, Dike 14 Nature Preserve has become naturalized and provides a exceptional opportunity for access to Lake Erie as well as access to a remarkable diversity of birds that either make their home in or use the area as a rest stop during migration, plants and other wildlife. From 1979 to 1999 sediments dredged from the Cuyahoga River and Cleveland Harbor filled the dike. Closed since 1999 as a disposal site. Citizen scientists have identified over 280 species of birds, numerous butterflies, 16 species of mammals (red fox, coyote, mink, deer) 2 species of reptiles, 26 Ohio plant species ( wildflowers, grasses) and 9 species of trees and shrubs!
During its history, Dike 14 Nature Preserve has become a unique bird attraction on our city’s lakefront. It has been called a “high performance” site because of the number and diversity of birds using the site. Birds use Dike 14 Nature Preserve as a migratory stopover site because of its size, its strategic coastal location and the diverse wildlife habitats (grasslands, forest, meadows, mudflats, shrublands, and wetlands). Dike 14 Nature Preserve is located at the intersection of four migratory bird routes: Lake Erie, the shore of Lake Erie, the Cuyahoga River Valley and the Doan Brook Valley. There is no other good stopover site for a 60-mile expanse of shore; the closest other sites being Mentor to the east and Huron to the west. Audubon Ohio has designated Dike 14 Nature Preserve as an Important Bird Area (IBA). For more information on IBAs click here.
Dike 14 is a confined disposal facility (CDF) for dredge spoils. Dredging is the removal of sediments that build up on the bottom of the river to maintain a safe shipping channel. Prior to the Clean Water Act of 1972 the dredge spoils were put in the open lake or along the shoreline as fill to create more land. A CDF is a protected place to put the soils and sediments from the river's shipping channels and harbor so they do not harm the health of the Lake.
The North coast of our city is made up of several dikes and other bulkheads. Burke Lakefront Airport has a series of confined disposal facilities under and surrounding it. The US Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to build another massive CDF at the mouth of the river to contain future wastes. There are 45 Dikes throughout the Great Lakes, which are each numbered, 16 are similar to Dike 14, another 29 as in-water or shoreline underwater facilities.
How do sediments end up in the Cuyahoga River? When ever it rains, sediment from roads and hillsides in the entire watershed wash into the river and eventually migrate out the mouth of the river and into the lake. (note: approximately19 inches of sediments were deposited in the ship channel as a result of the flooding event in June 2006.) The shipping channel of the Cuyahoga River and the Cleveland harbor must be continually dredged. The US Army Corp of Engineers is in charge of keeping 23 foot depth for the federal shipping channel.
Steel and stone walls surround Dike 14. Inside those walls are several layers of stone of different sizes ranging from large boulders to pebbles that act as a filter, keeping the soils and fine grained sediment such as silt and clay in the dike and letting water evaporate or percolate out into the lake. Click here to download more information on CDFs and Dike 14.
Environmental testing and a risk assessment was conducted because of the source of the dredgings. Partners Environmental Consulting, Inc. from Solon, Ohio is the contractor for the environmental testing and risk assessment, working with The Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District. The US Environmental Protection Agency has granted funds of $200,000 for the Dike 14 brownfield assessment and risk analysis.
An 8-acre landfill is part of Dike 14. The landfill was used from 1968 to 1970. Any disturbance to a landfill must receive authorization from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency before the work begins in accordance with Ohio Administrative Code 3745-27-13, commonly called Rule 13. Additional progress reports will be posted at the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District web site.
The risk assessments shows that controlled public access is safe for its environmental education usage. Now the Dike 14 Nature Preserve can be protected and promoted as a nature preserve to provide environmental education to residents and school children. This has been done successfully at a similar disposal site in Buffalo, NY, called Times Beach.