Restoring Rivers, Supporting Local Economies
Restoration activities at Ashtabula Harbor focused on creating a healthy balance between local industries and the environment. Signs along a riverwalk, designed by Ohio Sea Grant, tell the story of the 30-year effort.
It’s a beautiful day in Ashtabula Harbor, just a few miles from the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. A few recreational boats from the marina upstream pass by benches on the boardwalk along the river, and farther north, commercial freighters are loaded with coal for export to Canada and overseas.
But the Ashtabula River didn’t always present such an idyllic image. It was declared an Area of Concern (AOC) under the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, after unregulated industry on the riverbanks had led to beneficial use impairments (BUIs) like restrictions on eating fish caught from the river, loss of wildlife habitat and overall environmental degradation and pollution.