Clergy thinks waterway has a prayer for renewal

By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- By canoeing down the Mahoning River, leaders of the Mahoning Valley's religious community got an unusual perspective on the waterway, which they hope will spur a renewal of the Mahoning Valley.
"The Mahoning River was what first gave life to this Valley -- not only the city, but the entire Valley -- and we believe that it can bring life again back to this Valley," said Chuck Swanson, administrator of the Greater Youngstown Community of Christians, which sponsored Friday's canoe trips.
The river, which once supported steel and related industries, can again be the site of development through the soon-to-be-built convocation center and new business enterprises, said Swanson, a detective sergeant with the city police department.
Recreational potential
"We have a very fabulous natural resource in Youngstown," said Edward Schenk of Struthers, a GYCC member, who added that he thinks the river has considerable potential for recreational use.
"The purpose of the canoe trip was to bring these pastors down here to have a journey of prayer. We're vitally interested in Youngstown. We love Youngstown and want to see turnaround come about here," Schenk said.
GYCC, an interdenominational coalition of 44 local churches, conducted identical two-mile morning and afternoon trips from the Market Street Bridge to the Center Street Bridge. These trips allowed pastors to travel one of the easiest and safest portions of the river for about 40 minutes.
Eleven people in five canoes and a kayak went on the morning trip, and 13 people were scheduled for the afternoon trip, both under sunny skies and comfortable weather conditions. The river was about 18 inches above its normal level because of recent rains. Its slippery mud and clay banks complicated entry and exit from the water.
Struggled upstream
At first, the canoeists struggled upstream to view a low head dam at Anthony's-on-the River, but soon abandoned that attempt and headed downstream under the Market Street, South Avenue, Himrod Expressway and railroad bridges to the Center Street Bridge, passing through two areas of shallow and somewhat rapid water. En route, they saw great blue herons, wood ducks, mallard ducks and kingfishers.
Swanson fell out of the canoe he occupied into chest-deep water when it capsized just short of the end of the trip. Trip organizers required all participants to wear life jackets and made sure they paired novices with experienced canoeists.
"It's a little bit of a challenge. It's not for the neophyte," Joel Beeghly of Bessemer, Pa., one of the canoeists, said of the Mahoning River and its rapids. "Below Lowellville, there are some real tricky places," he observed.
"It's very serene, very quiet down here. It's totally isolated from city life," Schenk observed.
With a largely intact streamside forest shading the river, the canoeists saw few clues that they were in the middle of a medium-size city. The quiet of the river is broken only by an occasional train and its whistle on tracks running along both sides of the river.
Cleanup needed
"A lot of people don't realize how nice the river really is," Swanson said. However, he said the river needs to be cleaned up. Swanson said he supports a proposed 10-year, $100 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredging project to remove industrially contaminated river bottom sediment from Warren to Lowellville and remove low head dams that are no longer needed to impound water for industry.
Because of the cancer-causing pollutants in the sediment, the Ohio Department of Health has maintained since 1988 an advisory against swimming or wading in the river between Leavittsburg and Lowellville and against eating fish caught there, thereby discouraging its use for recreation.
On its next trip, the group would like to start where Mill Creek enters the Mahoning River under the Mahoning Avenue Bridge, portage around the low head dam at Anthony's and exit at the Center Street Bridge, Beeghly said.