West Creek Conservancy

West Creek Conservancy's role in the community and region is unique, as it takes a watershed approach with respect to land conservation, stream/wetland restoration, and trail/greenway development. Northeast Ohio has a storied past of development and has often been a poster child of environmental change. Where a river once caught fire and pollution was national front-page news, we now have one of the most visited national parks in the country, a vast network of metroparks/park districts, a 100- mile water trail, a handful of nationally significant 'scenic rivers', a regionally collaborative network of watershed groups, and story after story of habitat recovery. Thoughwe still have much work to do West Creek is a hybrid land conservation and watershed restoration organization - acquiring land (including high quality and completely degraded areas); restoring ecological functionality (streams, wetlands, open meadows, forest lands, as well as brownfields); retrofitting the built environment (often removing unsustainable development, reclaiming natural areas or installing green infrastructure or other stormwater control mechanisms); building trail and greenway networks in order to connect people to these special places; and engaging municipalities, stakeholders, policy makers, or other partners in order to implement sustainable practice and policy. This is what we refer to as a 'headwaters-to-confluence approach'. West Creek is regularly filling a specific role: helping partners acquire land, possibly on an interim basis, and sometimes pre-acquiring before the opportunity is lost. We pride ourselves on partnership. One of the largest, and most recent, examples of such is a project referred to as irishtown bend - a 23+ acre reclamation initiative in the heart of downtown cleveland along a half mile of the cuyahoga river, which made significant strides in terms of its transformation in 2023. This organization was able to orchestrate a series of complex transactions to gain ownership of the area so that its partners could accelerate and implement a truly transformative and necessary project. Our role helped catalyze a nearly 100m project that will change the face of the river and provides needed urban park, greenspace, and outdoor recreation opportunities to a dense urban community. With a small staff, our watershed and conservation services stretch beyond a dozen counties in northeast Ohio. Employing our partnership approach, we are assisting trumbull county metro parks with creating and restoring a 200-acre area within kinsman swamp; assisting cleveland metroparks in expanding West Creek reservation by 100+ acres, while developing 2+ miles of new trail system; assisting broadview heights in protecting vital riparian corridors along chippewa Creek; coordinating a significant conservation initiative along pond-brook/tinker's Creek in the city of reminderville; assisting richland park district with the preservation/restoration of over 200 acres in the clear fork watershed; coordinating the conservation/restoration and redevelopment of nearly 100 acres within the city of twinsburg and twinsburg township; supporting community-initiated conservation within the cities of broadview heights/brecksville to protect the headwaters of furnace run and baldwin Creek; catalyzing resources of the city of parma and neorsd along baldwin Creek leading to miles of protected stream corridor; and so much more. In 2023 alone, we had over 6m in stream/wetland restoration projects on the ground in 5 counties - assisting park districts and a plethora of other stakeholders. These projects may appear disconnected at first glance, but by applying a strategic watershed approach, these corridors in many circumstances become connected or otherwise part of a larger initiative. With respect to our conservation initiatives, the organization does not pursue projects based solely on a threshold of acreage or other hard and fast measurables, but rather a myriad of factors that reflect the mission- centric focus of our work. For example, whereas 300+ acres of high-quality wetland is extremely important for the ecosystem or watershed, a 5-acre parcel in an urban area is equally important by connecting thousands of people to green spaces on a daily basis. It is for this reason that the organization takes a headwaters-to-confluence approach in carrying out its mission. West Creek's entering its 27th year of protecting-restoring these amazing places and we're proud that we've been able to maintain the vision of our founders of 'making nature your neighbor' - and where capacity once limited us to the West Creek valley, we are humbled that we can now serve constituents in over a dozen counties in northeast Ohio and beyond (including the lake erie and Ohio river watersheds). We invite you to help West Creek Conservancy continue with its mission. We are proud of the vast network of partners that we get to work with and the fact that our work has a generational impact - and you too, can be a part of that legacy. Through direct financial gifts, attending meetings, hikes, tours, events, conserving your land, or volunteerism - there are so many ways to support West Creek a gift now makes a lasting difference.