Among the many events featured at an upcoming outdoor festival is the Watershed Game. (Photo courtesy Mike Durkalec)

Free festival features fish, face-painting and folklore
By Jennifer Mitchell
Westshore
Published Sept. 20, 2006

Whether they know it or not, almost everyone in the area drinks Lake Erie water. Some also use it and nearby waterways to fish, kayak, canoe, swim and wade. Since so many people have a stake in the water system, an outdoor celebration will show them how they affect it and what they can do to protect it.

The Rocky River Nature Center in North Olmsted will hold its annual Watershed Festival from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Live fish plucked from the river, storytellers, folk music and food are just some of the free event’s many features.

From Cleveland to Olmsted Falls, everyone lives in a watershed. It’s simply bodies of water, including storm water and snow melts, that move through networks of drainage pathways, both underground and on the surface. Such pathways converge into area streams and the Rocky River, eventually flowing into Lake Erie.

As the water flows downstream, it picks up antifreeze, gasoline and oil from parking lots and streets; fertilizer and animal waste from lawns; sediment from construction sites; litter; and myriad other pollutants along the way.

Saturday’s festival will look at the bigger picture and show participants the smaller one — the little steps they can take on a daily basis to get Lake Erie and its tributaries closer to their once-pristine state.

Popular regional performers include folk musician Brian Henke, who takes the stage from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and interpretive storyteller Foster Brown, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Weather permitting, Metroparks Aquatic Biologist Mike Durkalec will conduct live fish collection demonstrations, a crowd favorite.

“Rocky River has a very diverse (fish) community, many different species of minnows and suckers, several types of catfish and small-mouth bass,” Durkalec said. The river also boasts steelhead rainbow trout, stocked in the fall by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

To catch, display and release the fish alive and intact, Durkalec uses a portable stun machine.

“It doesn’t kill them,” he said. Rather, a mild electrical current temporarily immobilizes them. Durkalec then puts them in jars and “they regain composure.”

Children will get the chance to find their home on a watershed map, experience the soils tent, play the Watershed Game, make crafts and decorate a T-shirt, provided for free. The festival also will hold a drawing with a grand prize trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky. The overnight stay in a family suite includes four passes to the water park.

“There’s information that applies for everybody,” Durkalec said. “We want to educate the public on how they can make a difference right there on their own properties and in their own communities.”