eight months to render a verdict, and during the interim both sides

made it clear that no matter what the judge decided, the case would

be appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. Finally, in October 2001

Judge John Enlow released his twenty-eight-page opinion, and

while it was a split decision, Akron came out on top.

The judge ruled that while the governor’s deed did not give

Akron the right to sell water to other communities, because Akron

had purchased land along the river upstream, the city was in fact a

“riparian” landowner that could sell water to others. “Akron has a

right as a riparian owner along the Cuyahoga River to take water

for its own use, including the sale of water to others, as long as the

amount of that taking is reasonable,” he wrote. “This Court con-

cludes that Akron’s current taking of water from the Cuyahoga

River at Lake Rockwell is not unreasonable.”

18

But the judge also

ruled that the city had to open Lake Rockwell to public recreation

and suggested—though didn’t require—that the city should con-

tinue to release 5 mgd into the river—about half what the commu-

nities had asked for. “We’re quite pleased,” Leslie Jacobs said after

the verdict. “The judge’s order sustains our position on all but two

points.”

19

It turned out that Akron’s victory celebration was short-lived,

as both sides filed appeals the following month. The longer the case

dragged on, the more abrasive and acerbic the court filings became.

The briefs were punctuated with insulting words like “myopic,”

“concocted,” “fairytale,” “fable,” “illogical,” and “revisionist.” It

took two more years for the appeal to make it to court, where at

times the jurists seemed unsympathetic to both sides. One judge

asked Akron’s lawyers if they felt they had the right to “box up”

Cuyahoga River water and “sell it to the people of Biloxi,

Mississippi?”

20

On March 31, 2004, Ohio’s Eleventh District Court

of Appeals handed down its decision, which reversed the lower

court’s rulings on many counts. The appeals judges said that Akron

could restrict public access to Lake Rockwell, but ruled that the

city must release a minimum amount of water from the reservoir

every day. They declined to say exactly how much water, kicking

that decision back to the lower court judge. The opinion, which

A k r o n G e t s t h e N o d

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