Waves of Grain
by James Franklin (Sky) King

Environmental commentarist James King lead a variety of commercial and institutional building design projects throughout the US, as a registered architect and interior designer. His work on historic preservation, urban renewal and protecting greenspace swept him away from corporate dead zones and into sustainable living, appropriate technology, recycling and conservation issues. He is is affiliated with The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Sierra Club, Ohio Environmental Council, Ohio City and Tremont development, Entrepreneurs for Sustainability and other groups.

Highway exits demand urban sprawl, with all the trappings for the 1-$top American lifestyle of fast food, heart burn and gas at the expense of our environmental health (trees, oxygen, wetlands), peace of mind and self-respect. Part of the Lake Erie biosphere still has the dirtiest air in the country - even without its old steel mills, and we talented immigrants built a series of canals in "new port" towns around Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State, to provide clear sailing between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. The canals were unfairly abandoned for the faster railway, again to be vacated by a new Interstate somewhere off in the distance while the vanishing American landscape lay absent of its original intent.

Ohio, along with only four other (destination) states, is surrounded mostly by water, not by land, and it is the only state bordered by two distinctly separate water systems that access the highest number of diverse locations with services and products. Despite having the longest reach in equity numbers and the greatest draw to substantial area mass or attractions, these facts remain unknown because we no longer make any connection between these two world class bodies of water. We do not even utilize our waterways as productively as our predecessors who came from Europe, where water is an important means of transportation or pleasure. Our canals were once attached to watersheds like Northeast Ohio's magnificent Cuyahoga Valley (CVNRA) and magical Beaver Creek, together being the shortest route (in our northern hemisphere) to navigate thousands of miles between Montreal and New Orleans. This simple canal link was only 80+ miles long between Cleveland and E.Liverpool (Pittsburgh) via the Ohio/Erie Canal (CVNRA) and Beaver/Sandy Canal (in need of similar conservation rescue).

If reactivated, this concept could mend many torn pockets with far reaching results, now that we have the population to justify addressing it. The potential we have over the future would benefit by considering these three observations:

1. Lake Erie is accessible to thousands of miles of shoreline, plus the Atlantic and beyond. Without this short canal link, water travel to the Gulf is a bit much, but it is still popular even if one must first boat to Detroit, then up Lake Huron, around the 'Glove', down Lake Michigan and river over to The Mississippi, leaving no time to interact with the land, the people, or exchange offerings. A new link would eliminate weeks of choppy miles to provide scenic and cultural activities as we revisit history through the area's restored villages, Amish markets, parks, and recreation. Hey, it's better than Disney! To start, let's extend the existing CVNRA tow path and the Buckeye Trail through Portage Lakes into a NEW Beaver/Sandy State Parkway to the Ohio River.

2. More incentives will develop if such a water link could again produce a continuous flow of people and commerce along the Ohio River to revitalize hundreds of ghost towns adjoining PA, WV, OH, KY, IN, IL, MO, etc., injecting renewed life, energy, and dollars by empowering those communities again with an inter-coastal waterway. This would be a wholesome alternative to clogging up our cities with more (sub)urban hardship. I have always wanted to charter a boat between Toronto and St. Louis by revisiting Lake Erie's fabulous islands (better than Martha's Vineyard), then wheeling into the old paddle haunts of Marietta, Huntington, Portsmouth, Maysville, The Queen City, Madison, Louisville, Owensboro, Evansville and Shawnee.

3. From a simple artery implant, the circulation is almost intoxicating, but there is need for research on this idea. Project the results of this research (emergence of modern global shipping and canal technology) onto the modeled features above for a direct transport line, along our neglected 90 mile OH/PA border. If feasible, it will support all of the above as well and revive everything between Buffalo, Erie, Youngstown, Sharon and Pittsburgh more effectively. Instead of sniffing around Mars for canals and without rocket scientists to figure it out, let's give our planet an opportunity to thrive right here in Cleveland with real space probing (parachute money) before global warming forces us to.

For the first time in 150 years, OH and PA would no longer be more broke than those wealthier destination states, as these states could soon be the brokers of a network of revenue activity.

Maybe these endless water exits will provide abundant trade, homemade profit and growth from such a relatively short link to the vast opportunities of sustainable systems and industries. What more can be said about these two tremendous natural resources? According to science, education, and religious teaching: connecting to our natural sources is always good, which is insourcing, which may be a way to economic redemption. By Cool Cleveland contributor James Franklin (Sky) King

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