Dike 14, Cleveland, Ohio: Containing Pollution in the Age of Ecology

Abstract

In the mid-1960s, growing public concern about the health of the Great Lakes led to a concerted effort to end the practice of dumping dredge spoils into open waters. The Army Corps of Engineers, which conducted or contracted for the dredging of harbors on the United States side of the lakes, developed an alternative: the creation of containment areas along the shore. Behind steel and stone walls that held back pollutants that had accumulated in the silt of industrial and commercial harbors, spoils dried out and created new land. In the case of Cleveland, Ohio, where the terribly polluted Cuyahoga River ensured that spoils would be tainted, the Army Corps created several diked disposal areas—including Dike 14, an 88-acre enclosure on the city’s eastern shore. Even before it was full, the area had begun to transition into a coastal forest, providing habitat for migrating birds and other species. Dike 14 is now known as the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve.