Oxbow Meadows at Sycamore Bend

Oxbow Meadows is an initiative of the Conservancy in partnership with the National Park Service and many other funders and partners. Together, we are envisioning and bringing to life the future of 213 reclaimed acres nestled in the heart of CVNP — formerly the Brandywine Golf Course. The project is currently in the Schematic Design phase.

Restoration of Haskell Run in Sycamore Bend

Haskell Run, located on recently remediated land now owned by the National Park Service, is 3,500 linear feet of stream traversing the former Brandywine Golf Course. During golf course development the stream was pushed to the edge of the valley, channelized, and in some spots buried as it made its way to a small pond on the course before being funneled under Akron Peninsula Road to the Cuyahoga River.  The stream suffers from degradation and erosion, creating an unfriendly environment for plant and animal habitat allowing sediment to wash into the Cuyahoga River. 

The restoration approach, funding by a grant from H2Ohio, is to remove some of the fill from the southern edge of the valley and placing it in the existing channel to raise the stream bed and reconnect it to a new floodplain and riparian forest. During the work any drain tiles, culvert pipes and remnants of the former asphalt cart paths will be removed in addition to infrastructure from an old concrete dam.

The downstream end of the restored portion of the stream will tie back into the existing stream through a cascade that can be moved and repurposed in future phases of the project.  

For more information, contact Stacey Rusher, Director of Park Projects, at [email protected].