Walking the towpath by Summit Lake

At long last, city and county leaders have decided to take a look at the Summit Lake area, no doubt due to the recent extension of the towpath corridor along the eastern edge of the lake. A Beacon Journal article announced a public gathering and walk along the towpath from Wilbeth Rd to the Summit Lake Community Center. An impressive collection of politicians and community leaders from the city and the county were there to see first hand what towpath walkers and bikers will be viewing as the towpath nears completion.

The walk attracted a large crowd of people from both sides of the lake. We met in a room in the center, where we were given impressive packets of research submitted by Cazzell M Smith of the East Akron Community House and a Summit County Council member. Entitled "Reclaiming Vacant Properties, Building Leadership to Restore Communities: Transforming distressed neighborhoods into healthy communities of choice and opportunity -- good places to work, do business and raise children," it provides examples of ways other communities have tackled the problems of unstable and grossly neglected neighborhoods.

I have blogged about the problems associated with living next to a toxic lake before. In today's ABJ, Mark Price gives a history of how swimming in the lake was banned in the early decades of the 20th century. (Here and here, for example.) A dumping ground for the rubber factories and an outlet for city sewers, the lake is still a place that nobody swims in.

So what will the passing hiker or biker see as they travel along this section of the towpath trail? Here are some photos from today's walk, with a few comments:


















The walk from Wilbeth Rd to Kenmore Blvd was rather like traveling along a narrow strip of scenic pathway with glimpses of a Mordor-like industrial landscape hidden beyond tall fencing and other strategically placed screening.
























We are walking through an area framed by industries still belching smoke and who knows what kinds of pollutants.








































Who knew that another kind of landscape existed underneath the Kenmore Blvd Bridge? The towpath gives a splendid view of this obviously much-used area, a place for kids to create art, and perhaps a dwelling place for homeless folks. It had a kind of museum-exhibit feeling to it -- it just needed a placard detailing the history of graffiti art of the 20th century and some wax figures dressed in raggedy clothes sitting around a fire.






































Trash could be seen everywhere along the walk. Beautiful water lilies and liquor bottles float above a sea of lily pads. I counted exactly one trash bin along the walk, which is one more than can be found on the western shore of the lake.



















The lake attracts a large number of ducks, geese and blue heron. Swans usually swim on this lake, but I haven't seen any this year. It is an odd situation, living next to a toxic lake that has been ignored for so long. We can walk along it and observe the wild life, the plant life, and the ripples of the waves bearing plastic detritus to the shoreline, but we dare not participate by swimming in the lake. An occasional boater takes a risk and can be seen out on the lake, and many people fish along the shores. I wouldn't eat a fish from this lake, but there are some people taking buckets full of fish home for family dinners.

Perhaps they are the people who live along the lake. The eastern side is a mix of public housing, decaying cottages from Summit Lake's glory days, and other rotting buildings.


















































Heading north up the east side of the Lake, the hiker/biker can observe the wonders of nature to her left and with glimpses of a decaying urban neighborhood
to the right. A mighty mullein plant sends its yellow spike toward the sun:
























The towpath trail itself is beautifully constructed. The floating dock-like section is wide enough to hold bikers and hikers traveling in opposite directions. Here we see a section of the towpath that edges right along the lake leading toward the community center to the north:


















The group arrived back at the center, but there was no formal sit down and respond to what we saw session afterward. More meetings will take place. Stimulus money will be sought and discussion about the quality of neighborhood life issues must take place. This is a high crime area, naturally. To be honest, I have been a bit nervous about testing out the new trail. Today's gathering was my first look at life on the eastern edge of the lake.


















The main problem remains the lake itself. It was polluted by people long since dead, and abandoned by city, county and state officials. The state has no money to clean it up properly. Everybody is afraid of stirring up the sediment on the lake's bottom. Meanwhile, it is no surprise that the communities to the east and west of the lake house the city's poorest white and black neighborhoods. The opening of this new section of towpath is an opportunity to reclaim and rebuild. I was very pleased to find other people thinking this way as well. Let's hope today's inspires the pols and the community leaders to take some positive actions. Hell, if we can get some trash cans on both shores out of this, I'll count it a victory!

Looking for Spring

No school today. Our building didn't have heat. What rotten luck -- another rehearsal vanishes from the diminishing schedule.




Rather than stress about it, I decided to head off into the cold sunshine -- with faithful Oberon the huskador retriever at my side -- to see if I could find some signs of spring.

When I was a kid, I had my own spring ritual. There would come a day in March when the snows were receding and the sky looked blue enough with sun poking through NE Ohio clouds, that lured me out in search of harbingers. I had my own secret place, in the wilds of Granger township that I visited every year, a wooded dell beside Granger lake beyond the cow pasture with no houses in sight. There I looked for trillium, bloodroot, and jack in the pulpit.

That old cow pasture is now full of McMansions, while the lake is surrounded by condominiums, and I doubt my favorite wild flowers reside there these days. But the sky above Akron had that look today, so we went for a long walk along the west shoreline of Summit Lake. Above you can see the waterfowl skirting the ice, our one resident blue heron is a long-necked speck in the upper right corner. Our first sign of spring!

Last year's vegetation, like an old grass skirt, edged the lake, providing a camouflage for ugliness on view once we got to the shoreline itself. There the hideous sights revealed themselves -- plastics on parade:














All manner of plastic refuse bobbed against the shore: plastic cups, packaging, food containers, and bags proudly displaying their various brands of consumables from diapers to cheap white bread.
















I duly photographed as many items as I could before my hands grew numb with the cold. No bit of shoreline was left unmarked by human consumerism. We found a traffic cone, a plastic garbage bin, milk jugs, a tricycle, and various tires:

It was all too depressing. We had to watch our step along the grassy edge of the lake, as many people walk their dogs there, but don't bother to pick up the poop and dispose of it properly. What would it take to have a couple of Doggie Dooleys installed along the lake, I wondered to myself? And maybe even some public trash cans would help motivate the humans who visit here to dispose of their trash in places other than the lake.

Upon arrival home, I looked about for some more positive signs of spring. Brushing aside a winter coat of dried leaves, I found the following green bits working their way toward spring.

March 21st cannot get here fast enough for me!

Swan Abuse in the Akron Area

Catching up with the news today, I found a disturbing report in Saturday's ABJ about the arrest of a man who had an injured wild swan in his car. The twenty year old suspect had just assaulted two neighbors and his mother, when police arrived and discovered the poor creature in the back seat. The story says that the swan:

"...was turned over to a Parks and Recreation Department worker and taken to a Street Department garage where the Lake Anna swans spend the winter.

The bird died the next day. It is not known whether [the suspect] found the swan injured or if it was hurt during the capture....

Peg Myers, a police records clerk, said the bird did not belong to the Lake Anna flock."

Some questions immediately leap to mind: Why was the injured swan taken to a garage? Should it not have been taken to an animal hospital?

Interesting that the Lake Anna swans are kept in a garage all winter. I have often wondered where the Summit Lake swans go during the cold months. And I really hope the dead swan is not one of ours.

Two summers after I moved into the Summit Lake area, the first pair of swans showed up on the lake. Such beautiful creatures! I am always amazed by the startling whiteness of their feathers, even as the swans float on this dirty old lake. The very next year, only one swan returned. I wondered every time I saw it what had happened to it's partner. The swan joined in the lake's growing water fowl community and certainly did not suffer for lack of companionship with all the ducks, geese and coots that make their homes here. The next summer, a new pair showed up at Summit Lake, forming a gliding trio that has expanded to at least three pairs plus the solo swan. (We also have in residence one blue heron. I keep hoping that it will show up with a mate one year.) Two of our current Summit Lake swans are pictured above.

The State of Ohio Wildlife Department is about to release 150 trumpeter swans into marsh lands around the state. Trumpeters have black beaks and are said to be native to this state, although there is some controversy over this. The OWD says that mute swans (the type that reside on Summit Lake with orange beaks) are exotics from Asia and Europe. Personally, I don't care where they came from. They are beautiful to contemplate and they bring life and add character to our lake.

I am still amazed that such creatures can live and seemingly thrive on the site of a lake that was once the repository for toxic factory wastes. Another Summit Lake resident once told me that the lakeside denizens had been pushing for a lake clean-up but were told that the cost of clearing the lake bottom of all the pollution was beyond anybody's ability to pay.