ECO SPEAKS CLE
ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability leaders and offers tips to help listeners connect, learn, and live with the community and planet in mind. ECO SPEAKS CLE is hosted by Diane Bickett and produced by her son-in-law, Greg Rotuno. Diane draws on experiences and relationships developed during her 31-year environmental career to showcase the impactful work shaping Cleveland's environmental future in a podcast that speaks to sustainability newcomers and masters alike.
ECO SPEAKS CLE
Preserving our History on the Towpath Trail with Canalway Partners
Mera Cardenas is a historic preservationist working to connect people to place as the Executive Director of Canalway Partners. We are the people, and the place is the historic Towpath Trail, located within the Ohio & Erie Canalway National Heritage Area. The 100-mile Towpath Trail from Cleveland to New Philadelphia follows what once was a significant transportation artery from the mid-1800s until the railroads came. The trail was completed in 2021 when the final section was constructed in Cleveland, ending at Canal Basin Park following 40 years of planning and $54 million. For Mera, preserving this connection between past and present is her passion and mission as she honors the legacy of her predecessors who envisioned and transformed Cleveland's industrial corridor into its recreational backbone.
Mera's background as a CNN producer and cultural historian brings a unique storytelling perspective to her role. Under her leadership, Canalway Partners has expanded its community engagement through signature events like the Lantern Parade, environmental stewardship through River Sweep, the Towpath Trilogy, and Cleveland History Days, featuring over 70 events highlighting the region's heritage.
Canalway Partners started with a meeting of like-minded people 40 years ago who never lost sight of their vision to reclaim Cleveland's industrial valley and bring us a unique, world-class recreational space. Today, Mera Cardenas is its new Executive Director, following the retirement of Tim Donovan, who led the trail's development. The work ahead will bring us new opportunities to experience the trail and the Ohio & Erie Canalway National Heritage area through expanded public spaces like Canal Basin Park in Cleveland and the many trails linking east and west with the Towpath as the spine and the Cuyahoga River as the source.
As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the canal's construction this year, Mera reminds us that our waterways fundamentally shaped our communities: "We're here in Cleveland and Akron because of the construction of that canal. Everything that came after came from what the canal brought to this region."
Learn more at canalwaypartners.com or follow their social media for upcoming events.
Learn More:
Our Guest, Mera Cardenas, Executive Director, Canalway Partners
Canalway Events
Discover the Towpath Trail
Volunteer with Canalway
History and Legacy of the Towpath Trail
Ohio and Erie Canalway National Heritage Area
Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition
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You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the eco-curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello friends, chances are that if you live in the Cleveland or Akron area, you've spent some time on the Towpath Trail. This recreational trail follows what was once a major artery of commerce in the mid-1800s through 1913, the historic Ohio and Erie Canal. The trail was completed in 2021, when the final northern section was constructed in Cleveland, ending at Canal Basin Park.
Diane Bickett:The canal's corridor from Cleveland down to New Philadelphia is so significant that it was designated by Congress in 1996 as the Ohio and Erie Canalway National Heritage Area. The organization we can thank for this regional treasure is Canalway Partners, which just celebrated its 40th anniversary, and joining us today is its executive director, Mera Cardenas. Mera joined Kanawe in 2020 and brings her unique background as a cultural historian to connect us to Cleveland's early history. Welcome,
Diane Bickett:On LinkedIn, you describe yourself as a placemaker and a story protector yes, which I love. That explains the very eloquent quote which I pulled up when you summed up, canalways work this way, and I'm just going to read your quote 40 years ago, a small group of Cleveland visionaries created a nonprofit to reclaim both the industrial valley of the Cuyahoga River and the region's narrative. Today, those stories connect communities through the corridor via the Towpath Trail and the Ohio and Erie Canalway National Heritage Area. So, Mera, what's it like to be the steward of this historic and culturally significant treasure that we have?
Mera Cardenas:Well, I think it's an honor. People had a vision 40 years ago and when somebody entrusts you to carry their vision forward because many people are still involved, who've been involved for a long time we have board members who've been on the board for over a decade and some who have just joined in the past few years so when somebody entrusts you with that vision to carry that forward, that's a great honor and I look at that as you know. That's my role is to carry it forward.
Diane Bickett:Yeah, and you joined Canal Way at a kind of a critical juncture it was towards the end when the trail Topat Trail was being completed. Yes, and the organization had to reinvent itself. I mean, what was it going to be going forward? And you came here from Georgia, I believe.
Mera Cardenas:From Atlanta, yes, I moved here from Atlanta to take this job
Diane Bickett:what attracted you job. the position?
Mera Cardenas:So in Atlanta I worked for the Arabian Mountain National Heritage Area, so I was already familiar with the way national heritage areas work and at their core, national heritage areas are taking history, nature recreation. National heritage areas are taking history, nature recreation. They're tying them all together in a very defined geographic space. But, unlike what you might think of, we're part of the National Park Service but, unlike what you might think of as a national park, none of the land is owned by the federal government. We're working in partnership with communities in a different way. We don't have any of the authority that the federal government has to work together and they don't give us all the money to do it.
Mera Cardenas:So were the forerunner of public-private partnerships. What's the boundary for the National Heritage Corridor here? Heritage Area in Cleveland is from Edgewater Park on the west side to Lakeview Cemetery on the east side and that kind of creates a funnel along the lake and then it narrows as it travels from the lake about 100 miles south and it's about five to 10 miles wide off the center point of the corridor. And I'll point out that we do operate in very close partnership with another organization in Akron that is greatly responsible for the areas south of the national park and that's the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition, and so they work a lot on the towpath trail, on things like Lock 3, on Summit Lake in.
Diane Bickett:Akron, and so your responsibility is Cuyahoga County. Within that heritage designation, what came first, the designation or the planning for the towpath, or did it all kind of coincide it?
Mera Cardenas:kind of all came together. The organization so Canal Way Partners was formed as an organization in 1985. Decided or started to explore jokingly might have trespassed a little bit to figure out where the towpath trail was, because it wasn't easily where the towpath was, because that and the canal and a lot of places weren't easily accessible. And they studied that idea. There's a study from county planning about that same time which created the really codified the idea of this north-south corridor in Cuyahoga County. So we tend to think of the city and the county as east-west and this is the first time that people were putting forth that idea. First time in modern times people were putting forth that idea of a north-south corridor.
Diane Bickett:So, and that corridor runs along Cuyahoga County's industrial valley, right the steel valley. So shout out to Rick and Marsha Rick Sika and Marsha Moll, who prepared the study, which I'm there's a copy of it sitting there in front of you city or county planners and Paul Alcinas, too, was a champion for that as well. And then Tim Donovan really started the organization.
Mera Cardenas:Yes, so the three founders, as far as the board goes, were Tom Jablonski, jeff Lenards, who went on after creating Canal Way, he went on to create West Creek Conservancy, and Mike Giangrande. And then that group was convened by State Representative Pat Sweeney, okay, by state representative Pat Sweeney, okay, and he brought them all together on. You know, this is starting to get mythological on this cold January evening.
Diane Bickett:The meeting that started it all. Yes, exactly yes.
Mera Cardenas:So and then there were a lot of people early on who bought into the vision. It's one thing to have this grand vision, but somebody has to say I can help you do this part of it. So there was Howard Mayer at NOACA. There was John Debo at the National Park. Now, not all these folks were there that first day, but they came on as the vision started to grow and started to pick up steam. And then Vern Hartenberg at Cleveland Natural Parks.
Mera Cardenas:So these are some early people who bought into this idea. And when we talk specifically about the towpath trail because the work that Canalway does is bigger than the towpath trail, but it took so much to build the towpath trail that a lot of the energy and identity of the organization went to that I think it was about five years after the creation of the organization where they hired their first employee, who was Tim Donovan, and he went on to serve for 30 years as the executive director. So when you talk about it being a critical time, the towpath trail in Cuyahoga County is finished, what does this organization become? It was also the time that Tim was retiring, so that's a critical point for a nonprofit is a change of leadership.
Diane Bickett:Well, welcome to Cleveland, thank you, even though you've been here for a number of years already. I understand you have a background or you have a master's in historic or heritage preservation from Georgia State University, so I don't know what that means heritage preservation. Maybe you can tell us, but it sounds like it would make you uniquely qualified to take the organization forward in an interpretive way, helping people to connect to the area and the towpath and learn something of its history.
Mera Cardenas:Yeah, that was my interest. I was drawn to heritage preservation and that program at Georgia State University, really for the architectural. I don't have an architectural background, but I always love old buildings and whenever I would. I didn't grow up going to national parks like on family vacations, but whenever I as an adult would travel to national parks like on family vacations, but whenever I as an adult would travel, it was national parks and old buildings that I always went to. And so, as I was deciding to leave my career at CNN and determine what I wanted to do next, I wanted to pick something that I didn't feel like I ever had to retire from, that I wasn't escaping from, and so this was something that you know I just I enjoy writing a history tour to me is a great vacation, and that would not appeal to everybody. Uh, so there are some qualifications. Heritage preservation can be very, very detail, heavy things like National Register nominations, a lot of architectural history, or, you know, you take my background at CNN and background in history and I do like to Canal Way in 2020.
Mera Cardenas:One of the things we did was we restated our mission. We said who are we, what is our promise to the community now and what we determined myself, the board, interviews with partners. We connect people to place, whether that's the Towpath Trail, the Cuyahoga place, whether that's the towpath trail, the Cuyahoga River, whether that's a historic cemetery which I'm particularly fond of, whether that's a whatever that is. We connect people to place. And the second part of that is for the prosperity of all. And what does prosperity mean to you? It doesn't always mean economic development, but it can. It could mean improved health, it could mean improved mental health. It could, you know, a better connection to your community increases the prosperity of the whole community. So what does that prosperity look like for the individual person that then folds into the whole?
Diane Bickett:So you're enriching our community, you're drawing more people in, and I should mention the CNN reference. You were a producer at CNN.
Mera Cardenas:Yes, I think, and I actually was a producer when the Rock Hall opened. So two Ohio Connection stories. I was here when the Rock Hall opened. I covered like three days of events. It was not glamorous because I was in you know a van in a parking lot working you know videotape editing and things. And then the second story, with the Ohio connection, with the strong Ohio connection, is John Glenn's return to space. So I covered that story down in Florida.
Diane Bickett:Okay, wow, well, that was an exciting time in Cleveland because Jacobs Field opened at the same time and there was so much promise and you could just feel the energy. So maybe you remember that and wanted to come back. So tell us about what Kanawha Partners is doing now. You mentioned some of your partners, but I imagine you work deep in the community. Do you maintain the trails, do you? What is your role today? I do not maintain the towpath trail, toepathtrails.
Mera Cardenas:What is your role today? We do not maintain the ToePath Trail. So in the vision for the ToePath in the late 2000s there was a four the city owns the actual property. The county coordinated vision through five mayoral administrations and three county executives and two county forms of government and carried that vision through. We also wrote a lot of the grants, looked for ways to draw funding into the area for it. And then the fourth party, cleveland Metro Parks, agreed 15 years ago that once this trail is built they would maintain it. So Cleveland Metro Parks maintains the trail. Now the city's responsible for any long-term maintenance capital projects.
Diane Bickett:Such a monumental achievement. I read somewhere it took 30 years and $54 million to make all this happen.
Mera Cardenas:So just assembling the parcels, waiting for real estate to come available, figuring out where the route was going to go and south of Steelyard, between the Steelyard development which is its own story about somebody buying into the vision to have Mitch Snyder buy into that and construct the area behind Steelyard and where the Ohio and Erie Canal Reservation begins.
Mera Cardenas:On Harvard, that was iteration 9b, so when you talk about the planning that wasn't just we did 10 iterations of the trail and picked which one worked the best. That was, as you were talking about different factors coming in. Well, wait, that property is not available now. Oh, maybe that property is contaminated. Oh, we have to, we can't get permission. You know there was a lot that had to happen, so that was 9B. Okay, 9b, it just kind of, you know, it just illustrates Better than being 30F, you know, but there was a tenacity for building the towpath trail.
Diane Bickett:So much grit and determination and you can't give up. No one gave up, you just kept at it.
Mera Cardenas:Exactly. Working the problem, keep working the problem. Yeah, exactly.
Diane Bickett:How do you connect people to place? You mentioned that a couple times.
Mera Cardenas:That is. There's no one formula Mm-hmm. So connecting people to place, it starts first with the physical space itself being welcoming. With the physical space itself being welcoming, is it a place where you feel it's safe to enter? Is it a place where you're experiencing safety?
Mera Cardenas:But also, connecting people to place, you have to tell them a story about why this place is important and meaningful. So it needs to be welcoming if somebody comes across it. About why this place is important and meaningful, so it needs to be welcoming if somebody comes across it. But there also needs to be constant invitation and reinforcement of that invitation that this place is for you, that this was built with public funds, and that's if we're talking specifically about the Towpath Trail or about Canal Basin Park. So if we're talking about those, you know you're talking about places that are built with public funds, but you might also be talking about private spaces that people are invited into. For one of the programs we do, called Cleveland History Days. It's about sharing the stories of that place and creating that connection. People are going to connect on different levels the Towpath Trail Lantern Parade, which we just held last week, which Greg and I went to Thank you Our weak sauce lanterns that we made.
Mera Cardenas:But I think that's part of it. You all walked that trail with a gamut of, first of all, participation.
Diane Bickett:I love that. So many families. It was a lot of fun as something they would do in their every day right.
Mera Cardenas:They think the trail is for people who run or they think the trail is for people who are fast on bikes. And helping people understand that you don't have to go far to enjoy the trail. This is for you, and we love that. We start in the neighborhood of Tremont and then we walk down the hill and we walk along the river, because the river is essential. We wouldn't have had the canal if it weren't for the river. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for the river. So, connecting people to that. They may not know that story last week, but now they have a connection to that and so they're more open to hearing the messages about why the river is important to us because they've experienced it. So that's part of making that connection.
Diane Bickett:And there's good access points. So in Tremont there's two parking lots available there and that's right off of what Abbey Road. Abbey Road, okay, by the Cleveland signveland sign we call that we now call that sokolowski's overlook.
Mera Cardenas:Oh nice, okay, and it's.
Diane Bickett:It's on google maps, so it's official okay, I wish I'd bring the restaurant back, but then canal basin park, which people have no idea where, how to get there, and that's like right down the hill from your office here. Yes, so right under the Veterans Memorial Bridge, detroit.
Mera Cardenas:Shorey Bridge, and as much as we love the Veterans Memorial Bridge, that's probably why most people don't know where Canal Basin is Because they drive over it. Exactly, you drive over it. It was in fact one of the supports, for the bridge is right in the middle of what would have been the historic turning basin, so that bridge itself probably blew out what was left of any historic infrastructure down there when it was built in the 19-teens.
Diane Bickett:Canal Basin Park is being developed by the city of Cleveland, or Cleveland Metro Parks. There's big plans for that area. It's going to be beautiful.
Mera Cardenas:Yes, so Canal Basin Park again, a huge partnership. And you have partners and you have stakeholders. The city of Cleveland owns the land and they own the entire 20 acres at this point 20 acres at this point. So some of the land has been remediated, meaning that it was reclaimed. So there are millions of dollars of investment in Canal Basin Park already. Some of that investment started 20 years ago with the acquisition of land, then with environmental remediation, and we'll go back to that theme again of partners buying into the vision. When the sewer district put their new pump station there, they understood that this was going to become a park. So they created a much different experience than if they were just creating this, you know, in some place where the public wasn't going to be accessible. So they upgraded the architecture of the pump station so that it would be more welcoming in a park. So those are things that you don't really like?
Mera Cardenas:yeah, you don't really think about that. Yeah, but the fact that the sewer district saw the vision and said, all right, we're gonna. We, our commitment is going to be to make this welcoming and not just, you know, a concrete block structure and and those are the types of things that happened over the last 20 years. So it isn't that we now have the slate to start with. There have been many plans to for Canal Basin Park and the last one, which took into account a lot of the planning that had already happened. It's a process and it's a continuum. It was just approved by City Planning Commission on January 3rd, so we're now with Canal Way. The city and the planners are moving into the next phase of planning. Cleveland Metro Parks and the county are integral partners to that the National Park, the sewer district. There are a lot of partners who are involved and will influence the creation of the plan, so the fundraising never ends.
Diane Bickett:What does that look like today versus a year ago?
Mera Cardenas:In terms of access to capital to bring these projects into being.
Mera Cardenas:First, interstate created Steel Yard. They created a TIF fund that helped to build the segments of the towpath and it will also help us to bring dollars to the table immediately for the construction of Canal Basin. So I mentioned January 3rd. We had the planning commission pass the schematic design, approve the schematic design. So our next phase, we're moving immediately into design documentation, construction documentation, which is huge. We don't have to raise the money for that. That actually is not coming from the TIF. But then we can be very strategic about those TIF dollars and figure out how using those dollars in the future will lead to the build out of the plan. Right now at Canal Basin we're looking at three components for what we're calling the core of Canal Basin. So one is riverfront connection, so building a cohesive river access, so whether that's a promenade or, you know, a boardwalk along the river, that ties into the entire vision for Cleveland Metro Parks along the river, the Columbus Road Peninsula and, now that they're they have, you know, property up along the East Bank as well.
Diane Bickett:Well, you have a lot of economic development stats you can use in terms of number to tell the story number of visitors and the money generated, and plus all the add on, I mean the trail has led to a lot of the bike trails that Cleveland Metro Parks is putting in right along the lake and the connector trails, so that's very exciting.
Mera Cardenas:A lot of those connector trails were inspired by the towpath trail If you look at the towpath trail as the spine. If you hadn't had the towpath trail, we might not have the bike connectivity across the city, across the county and across the region that we do now. It was just announced that Sandusky is building their own 100-mile loop around the bay.
Mera Cardenas:Really that's cool and what the Towpath Trail has brought to the region is now being reflected and repeated. I think we just saw was it news this week too, about the Slavic Village downtown connector that is moving forward. Kanaway was involved very early on in that, but Cleveland Metro Parks has now been able to take that project, get the funding for it and really take that expertise from a lot of their trail building and move that project forward.
Diane Bickett:That's exciting. So this whole area 40 years from now, with the bedrock development and what's happening on Scranton Peninsula and all these connector trails, is really great for the region.
Mera Cardenas:Yeah, yeah, it really reflects the generational work that is done, that it doesn't get started and finished in three or five years. These are really big projects and if you talk, whether it's Canal Basin Park or the Towpath, irish Town, bend or Bedrock or the lakefront, these are all things that take, you know, a generation to implement. We were talking about the Towpath Trail in Canal Basin Park 40 years ago. That's where the vision was born. A lot of work has gone into Canal Basin. Still a lot more work to realize that vision.
Diane Bickett:Let's talk about a venture, hosting together us all on the trail. We talked about the Lantern Parade a couple weeks ago, but you have several events coming up that are your signature events you want to talk about those?
Mera Cardenas:Yes, so that was part of the reimagining of Canal Way is that we were looking for more ways to engage people now that the construction of the of the towpath was completed in 2021. And while we're still working, so we work projects. We talked a lot about canal basin and the towpath, but these programs are are really how we connect with people. So we had the lantern parade and if you miss the lantern parade, the professionally created lanterns will be on display at Tower City starting April 5th. We have River Sweep, which we have been running for 30,.
Mera Cardenas:This is our 36th year of picking up trash along the Cuyahoga River corridor. I would like to point out we're not always going back to the same places. We do have success. We've converted about 400 acres into parkland, again not single-handedly, but areas that we used to clean regularly either no longer need cleaned or they might be in public ownership now or have been redeveloped. So we seek successes and we add new sites every year. So we've added. For last year we added the Opportunity Corridor. We'll return there this year, and then we've added West 65th Street into this year. So we're constantly adding volunteer opportunities for that open the first week of April, so that'll be the first Saturday in May.
Mera Cardenas:In April as well, we have the Towpath Half Marathon in the Ohio and Erie Canal Reservation. That is the first of our race series of the Towpath Trilogy. In June we start Cycle Canal Way, so we'll lead the bike rides out of a small community bike rides and we take a different tour every month. And then we have a really large community event Cleveland History Days. It starts June 19th, goes through the 29th. We have about 30 history-minded community partners who work on it. Over 70 events history tours, lectures, fun things that we have one historic bank lobby tours, which is this is the only time we run it. Historic bank lobby tours, which is this is the only time we run it. And then we have tours that you might be able to do as part of organizations at other times of the year.
Diane Bickett:Yeah, I'm excited for Cleveland History Days. You have 70 events going on over those 10 days.
Mera Cardenas:Probably more than 70. Yeah, we haven't filled out the calendar yet. We're in the planning stages for that. We have River Rally, which is on August 9th.
Diane Bickett:I love I have them, as I have the dates written down, but you're like I'm impressed.
Mera Cardenas:The visual, a visual calendar. We have some fun things in, interspersed within that as well. You're going to see a lot more programming out of Canal Basin Park. Out of Canal Basin Park we haven't announced some of it, but we'll probably have some live theater and some music and different ways to get people to understand where Canal Basin Park is and what to do down there. So we have some fun things with that. On April 26th we have Celebrate. Trails Day will be based in Canal Basin and that is in conjunction with the county and Bike Cleveland, the city, cleveland Metro Park. So we'll be hosting some bike rides out of Canal Basin. And then we have the jumping ahead in the calendar. In October we have our Towpath Marathon, which is our third in the running race series. You don't have to run a marathon, there is also a half marathon distance.
Diane Bickett:How about a half-half marathon, a half-ass marathon?
Mera Cardenas:We do a 5K in our June event and each one of those running races explores a different part of the towpath trail, and then we kind of wrap up the year. Inspired by Cleveland History Days and my love of historic cemeteries, we started an event last year that we called Buried History Days, and so we engage with the historic cemeteries around the city and the events are designed to enlighten, not frighten, and they're sharing the stories of Clevelanders of the past.
Diane Bickett:Very exciting, everything's awesome, so I could plan my whole summer just staying here in. Cleveland, between your events and the Conservancy for CVNP has great, great concerts and everything down that way. So how do you use volunteers to support all these efforts and how can people help?
Mera Cardenas:Yeah, so volunteers are integral to the success of any nonprofit. You can volunteer with River Sweep. You can also volunteer for one of our running races, so if you have a group of folks, you don't have to run the race. You can be at one of our water stops, which are always a lot of fun. You cheer on the runners, you come out for a couple hours and help people enjoy the Towpath Trail. We have some corporations that come out and they'll well, I won't say what's in their cups, but they have a good time with their employees.
Mera Cardenas:You can also talk to us about volunteering for Cleveland History Days. We're actually starting I don't know if we're calling it a host program, but we're starting a way for people who are really engaged with Cleveland history to help us. 70 events is a lot of events and we have a small staff of four. So bringing people, you know, making sure that people have their questions answered at Cleveland History Days, but also our events like River Rally. We always need our volunteers to help us put these events on and they might involve, like at the Lantern Parade. They involved greeting or keeping people on the trail when we had to turn around. So it's a way to get outside and enjoy the events on a different level.
Diane Bickett:Okay, well, I look forward to volunteering with you guys.
Mera Cardenas:We look forward to seeing you.
Diane Bickett:If you give me a script, I can help you with the Cleveland History Day.
Greg Rotuno:And.
Diane Bickett:I might know some people. So, wrapping up, any parting thoughts or an homage to the past, or a vision for the future that you want to leave us with, or a vision for the future that you want to leave us with.
Mera Cardenas:I think when you get to a big anniversary, it's a great time for reflection For sure it's a and you know I pulled out this Plain Dealer article from 2000 entitled the Forgotten Valley. Steve Litt was very integral to really understanding and helping the public understand a lot of the projects that we were, that we were working on, and I think when you reflect on that you also can can see if you're caught up in a current moment that might make you feel very anxious. You can look back at whether it's an organization or something connected to your own life. You can look at that 40 years and see the progress and know that we have. That might change. Every event might not be there. For the next 40 years, hopefully we have new events that are inspired by people, that connect people to place.
Mera Cardenas:We also are looking at the 200th anniversary of canal construction starts this year on July 4th. The first canal boat went from Akron to Cleveland on July 4th 1827. So we're looking at the 200. So the next two years we'll be talking about the 200th anniversary of that key connection. We're here in Cleveland and in Akron because of the construction of that canal. Everything that came after came out of what the canal brought to this region. So we'll be looking at how do we highlight the steelmaking or the railroads that actually ended up usurping the canal as transportation, or the river, and the creation of the EPA based on the river fire. All these things are points of reflection and that's what we'll be talking about in the near term, but we're also setting our organization up for success for the next 40 years.
Diane Bickett:Yeah, I like what you said about. I mean, we're part of a continuum and when we get upset on our, you know, watching the news or the day-to-day stuff, I mean you just have to see the bigger picture, and I like what you said. The quote I read earlier from you was we're reclaiming the narrative of our industrial past, which you know we like to run away from because it was dirty and it was polluting, but it was so integral to who we are and the formation of the environmental regulations that allow us to have a clean environment today and use this area to the way we're using it today. So, thank you very much for joining us, thank you for being here and I'm really excited to see what you do under your tenure and learning more.
Mera Cardenas:Thank you so much.
Greg Rotuno:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak CLE. You can find our full catalog of episodes on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please follow EcoSpeak CLE on Facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at ecospeakclecom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.
