The removal of roughly 11 football fields of contaminated sediment behind the Gorge dam, stacked 10 to 12 feet high, will open up recreations and economic opportunities, according to elected officials in Cuyahoga Falls.

The more than $130 million project has been decades in the making, part of a broader legacy of remediating pollution and other issues with the Cuyahoga River. It will also open up the waterfall that the city of Cuyahoga Falls was originally named for, said Mayor Don Walters, who was joined at the event by Governor Mike DeWine, congressional representatives and environmental officials.

"All our stationary has a picture of what we call the Cuyahoga Falls," Walters said. "It's known as the Big Falls. Well, no one alive has ever seen it. It's under the dam. So finally, when t

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