Just 10 years ago, it was not recommended that anyone come into contact with water from the Cuyahoga River.

Fast-forward to this summer, and the river was named a National Water Trail , joining a list of 40 other waterways across the country in the group, a subclass of the National Trails System. A 41-mile-long stretch of the Cuyahoga River extending from Summit County to Lake Erie earned its designation from the U.S. Department of the Interior in June.

“It’s a river that truly has transformed from an area that was scarred and seemed like it might never rebound into something that was not only viable for native plants and native animals that haven’t been here for so long, but also viable to recognize as a far cry from what it was even 10 years ago,” says Ryan Ainger, a Cuyahoga Valley

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