Cuyahoga County
The consensus of the Cuyahoga County Local Work Group (LWG) was to concentrate on two of
the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District’s five strategic goals. These two goals are to:
1. Identify and prioritize all the significant resource concern areas in Cuyahoga County and
partner with appropriate agencies to affect the needed courses of action.
2. Take conservation techniques and tools to the communities of Cuyahoga County.
The Cleveland MetroParks and several other partners such as the Friends of Euclid Creek, the
Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan (RAP), Chagrin River Partners, Doan Brook Partners, and
the Rocky River Watershed Council are working to preserve and restore natural areas. The LWG
recommended that we focus our attention on resource concern areas already identified to put
conservation practices on the ground.
A major focus of EQIP at the state level is the reduction of stream pollution through the proper
management of manure. Since there are very few farms in Cuyahoga County that produce
manure, it was decided to concentrate our EQIP dollars on cost sharing innovative manure
management practices at horse stables and with individual horse owners and the removal of
historic manure piles (old piles of manure) that are causing pollution in the streams in the Rocky
and Cuyahoga River watersheds.
The LWG also decided to focus on streambank erosion, loss of aquatic habitat and water quality do
to the loss of wetland and riparian areas. Restoring eroding streambanks and replacing lost
wetlands will help to address these issues