Riverbed Street: Soon to be an actual riverbed?

It's the sort of memo that takes on historic irony after a catastrophe, a prescient warning that gets lost in a river of bureaucracy, only to resurface in the media after it's too late.

On Nov. 8, 2007, the Army Corps of Engineers alerted Cleveland to a situation that could potentially shut down the Cuyahoga. The memo begins: "This letter is to inform you of the serious potential for catastrophic embankment and bulkhead failures along the navigable sections of the Cuyahoga River."

In short, a sizeable chunk of earth is threatening to slide into the river. No one knows exactly how much, but enough to shut it down. So far, nothing has been done to prevent this from happening. In a cash-strapped city, officials are trying to figure out who should pay for repairs. And while they study the problem, the ground beneath the west bank of the Flats slips toward the tipping point.

On a hot summer day, the crooked river slips toward the lake at a leisurely pace, an undulating blanket of silk the color of worn shoe leather. Beneath the concrete pylons of the Detroit-Superior bridge, a barge makes its way upstream, navigating the tight, irregular bends like a fat man heading for the bar in a packed nightclub. The Center Street swing bridge - built in 1901, the last of its kind around here - swings back and the barge continues toward Mittal Steel.

Ships like this one sustain our way of life along the North Coast. Commodities passing through Cleveland Harbor generate approximately $151 million annually in direct revenue, supporting over 2,500 jobs that account for more than $92 million in personal income, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

On the west side of the river, looming over the barge, is an overgrown embankment. Atop this hill is Riverbed Street. Or, rather, that's where Riverbed Street once was. The city closed Riverbed in November 2005, when the pavement started cracking and buckling from geological stress. Today, access to the street is blocked off by Stonebridge Waterfront apartments.

Beyond the barriers, just around the first bend, Riverbed Street is slowly tumbling into the Cuyahoga a piece at a time. A section of road at the edge of the drop-off is already MIA; it looks like a giant came along and took a bite out of it. The ground here is in motion.

This section of the river is missing bulkheads - steel barriers that keep erosion in check. The river below chips away at this hill's foundation a fraction of an inch at a time. It's a natural process that has been happening for hundreds of years, but something is speeding it up. It's possible that an old sewer line has busted beneath the street, leaking putrid funk into the ground, making it slide faster.

"Last year, there was an increase in crevasses," says Jim White, executive director of the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan. "It suggests something new is happening."

So now, what was once just a slow trickle of dirt falling into the river - a problem the city has been aware of and has ignored for a mind-numbing 125 years, according to a Sewer District study - could become a sudden "slumping failure," wherein the hill collapses into the Cuyahoga in one great dump, cutting off shipping access to factories upstream indefinitely.

"It's like the risk of a volcanic eruption," says White. "We see all the signs that it's going to happen, we just don't know when. Is it an imminent danger? Will it fall today, this month, this year? Maybe. We know it's not going away. It won't fix itself."

So why hasn't work begun to fix it?

White puts it bluntly: "It's a funding problem," he says. "Where do you go to get $50 million?"

A WEEK AFTER the Corps memo, Harbor Manager Sandra Ambris was already floating potential ideas for how the city might defray the cost of shoring up the west side of the Cuyahoga. "In my opinion, we need to determine whether the failure was directly or indirectly caused by the displacement of the brick interceptor sewer, placing the cost of repair within [the North East Ohio Regional Sewer District]," she wrote in an e-mail to Ricky Smith, director of port control.

Not just another pothole: Patching up Riverbed Street won't fix this road.

After surveying the site and speaking with the Corps, Ambris sent a second e-mail the next day expressing concern that the matter should be expedited. "The bulkhead located under the I-90 bridge is a main area of concern and could quickly become a catastrophic failure." Later that day, Smith alerted the mayor's chief of staff.

Unless the hill falls, it's not actually up to the Coast Guard or the Army Corps of Engineers to pay to repair it. "If something happens, we will clear the waterways," says Linda Sturgis, with the US Coast Guard Marine Safety Office.

"Property owners would be responsible for funding repairs," states Bruce Sanders, public affairs officer for the Corps. "Responsibility for ensuring that bulkheads are capable of performing as designed rests with the property owners."

That's a load off taxpayers' shoulders, but a kick in the slats for landowners. Businesses with a stake in the repairs include those that are dependent on the harbor - Mittal Steel and other factories upriver - and the K&D Group, which owns and manages Stonebridge Waterfront apartments, which sits above Riverbed Street.

The K&D Group declined comment for this story, but according to the Department of Port Control, the business is actively involved in a funding task force that has been put together to search for grants to cover some of the $50 million it will take to replace the sewer and shore up the hillside.

A spokesman for the Flats Oxbow Association, a group that promotes economic development in that area, wouldn't talk about it, either. "You're going to fuck us," he said. "And I'm not going to help you."

"The general consensus is that there is no quick and inexpensive resolution," says DPC spokesperson Jacqueline Mayo.

It's unclear, however, if property owners have raised a single penny. Meanwhile, the Corps has raised close to a million to offset the cost of providing technical assistance to the city - although nothing is currently in the Corps' budget for 2009.

The DPC has also formed a group to "research solutions to repair Riverbed Street" and a design team to execute a "Failure Contingency Plan." "This team includes property owners, local, county and federal agencies working together to respond to a possible catastrophe which will affect the economy of river-dependent industries and the City of Cleveland," explains the Department of Port Control in an e-mail.

In the coming weeks, the Failure Contingency Plan will be put into action during a series of drills that will play out on the Cuyahoga.

"The important thing to remember is that the City of Cleveland, the Coast Guard and the Corps are aware of the situation, have been working together, and have a plan in place for dealing with bulkhead failures," says Sanders.

To date, business owners have not engaged a contractor to begin repairs on the falling hillside. A final cost estimate for repairs has not been completed; $50 million is an early estimate. Meanwhile, the Department of Port Control is researching the problem for the city. "This fall, the DPC will recommend a near-term and long-term plan to the mayor for addressing this situation," writes Mayo. "We understand the seriousness of the situation and we are evaluating the situation to determine the best course of action to mitigate the erosion."

Hopefully, when everyone's done studying the situation, the hill will still be standing.

Jim White wonders if it's already too late. "Murphy's Law says it'll fail while we're trying to prevent it," he says. "If that happens, the ripple effect on our economy would be staggering."