The City of Akron owns and manages almost 19,000 acres of property in the Upper and Middle Cuyahoga Watershed within Summit, Portage and Geauga counties. These lands are managed with a focus on maintaining excellent water quality using a protection program that includes land acquisition, watershed monitoring and reporting of pollution sources, collaboration with upstream landowners, and management of Akron owned property in the watershed. The land owned by the City of Akron in the watershed is often left in as natural a state as possible to reduce the amount of pollution runoff that reaches the river, to recharge groundwater supplies, and preserve natural habitats for wildlife.