Innovation Guide - 2021 - 6

meetings with communities surrounding
the parks and groups
with special interests all provided
valuable feedback about the
parks and the ways people travel
to them.
Innovation
In early 2016, the Connecting
Cleveland partnership team applied
to the U.S. Department of
Transportation's Transportation
Investment
Generating Economic
Recovery (TIGER) grant
program with the Re-Connecting
Cleveland project to develop and
build remaining elements of the
Connecting Cleveland agreement,
along with several other
critical pieces of trail infrastructure.
In July 2016, the application
was selected and the partnership
team was awarded $7.95
million. At the time, only one
other park district has received
a TIGER grant out of the 421
funded projects and more than
7,300 applications received since
the grant program's inception in
2009. This innovative bundling
of projects also leveraged another
$8.4 million in funding from
the federal Congestion Mitigation
and Air Quality Improvement
Program,
Ohio's
Clean
Ohio Trails Fund and State Capital
programs, the Wendy Park
Foundation, and several other
philanthropic sources.
Looking Ahead
Re-Connecting Cleveland trails
and greenway corridors have
been constructed following all
relevant design guidelines and
specifications
to
ensure
provide regular safety patrols to
ensure the well-being of all users.
They will be supplemented by
the nearly 300 volunteer Trails
Ambassadors that assist users
with questions and first aid and
report any maintenance issues.
they
will last long into the future.
Cleveland Metroparks' natural
resources and management personnel
will maintain the trails.
Additionally, Cleveland Metroparks'
police department will
Innovation in
Conservation - City of
Ocala (Florida)
Ocala Wetland Recharge Park
The Ocala Wetland Recharge
Park was established to address
three main goals: recharge,
reduction of nutrients and recreation.
Treated wastewater and
local stormwater are sent to the
park - an engineered wetland
- where aquatic vegetation and
the microorganisms that live on
the plants consume and trap
pollutants that are found in both
water sources.
In Ocala, most drinking water
is pulled from the Upper
Floridan Aquifer, which also is
the source of water for one of
the few first magnitude springs
(large springs that discharge at
least 64.6 million gallons of water
per day), Silver Springs, in
Marion County, where Ocala is
the county seat. Silver Springs is
classified as an impaired water
body due to nutrient pollution,
primarily from Nitrogen. Nitrogen
is carried into Silver Springs
from a number of sources, including
by stormwater containing
animal waste (both domestic
and wild) and fertilizer applied
to lawns and used in agriculture.
The stormwater and wastewater
that flow into Silver Springs also
The Ocala Wetland Recharge Park
was established to address three
main goals: recharge, reduction of
nutrients and recreation.
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Parks & Recreation | 2 0 2 1 INNO V AT ION GUIDE | PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G
PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF OCALA
Innovation Guide - 2021

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