Posted on September 2, 2021
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — Although City Council plans to get a “second opinion” on a recommendation from the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, officials there may go ahead and issue a “request for proposals” to remove the Horseshoe Lake dam this week.
After being paid a visit Monday night (Aug. 30) by NEORSD officials, including CEO Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, along with Shaker Heights Mayor David Weiss, council came up with an unofficial 4-2 majority to seek their own study from an independent consultant.
This would likely be from an engineering firm, although Dreyfuss-Wells explained at the outset of the Committee-of-the-Whole meeting that there was no formal environmental impact assessment on the $14 million proposal to deconstruct the 170-year-old dam, because there would be no federal funding involved.
Another area where some Cleveland Heights council members want more clarification are the associated costs, including the projected $20.7 million NEORSD says it would cost to dredge Horseshoe Lake and repair the dam.
Both Shaker and Cleveland Heights lease their respective sides of Horseshoe and Lower Shaker Lakes as parkland from the City of Cleveland. The NEORSD has asked both councils to sign off on the plan to remove the upper dam and subsequently, Horseshoe Lake itself, with a stream restoration project featuring native habitat.
Quick, temporary fix
Councilman Mike Ungar commended Weiss and Shaker Heights for proceeding with a temporary fix on the earthen and stone dam, with design costs of about $46,000, which the NEORSD planned to pay for when its board met later this week.
Design work was expected to take about a month, with actual construction work — a “controlled breach” and fortification to allow excess stormwater to pass downstream in the Doan Brook Watershed — expected to last only a week.
“But there is still a major concern that there continues to be deterioration detected and that (the dam) is in even worse shape than we thought,” Weiss said. “Emergency mitigation measures do not eliminate the risk. We know the dam is in active failure and unfortunately, time is not on our side and inaction is not an option.”
In response to Councilwoman Melody Joy Hart’s original request at the Aug. 9 joint council and public meeting with NEORSD, for an independent review of the recommendation, Dreyfuss-Wells said that structural failure of a Class I dam remains a critical public safety issue.
With that in mind, Dreyfuss-Wells said she would be recommending two actions to the NEORSD board this week: paying for the emergency repairs and authorizing the “RFP for a long-term solution — we’re very comfortable with a simultaneous” approach, having worked with Cleveland Heights staff on many environmental issues in the past.
The design work itself for the proposed removal of the dam is expected to take at least two years to complete. Hart said that Cleveland Heights would do its best to put its additional study on the “fast track.”
“I am ‘unready’ on this topic — I am not a dam engineer and I am no expert,” Ungar said. “I have no issue with the ‘bonafides’ of the sewer district. But when I get bad news from a doctor, something like an amputation — in this case, Horseshoe Lake — I want to get a second opinion.
“What we’re talking about doing is permanent in nature,” Ungar continued. “I applaud Shaker, and of course, safety is paramount.”
Councilman Craig Cobb said he has received credentials from a civil engineering firm, and a council majority agreed to take about a month to study, bringing it back for a vote in October.
“We’re not sure whether this is even the right cost,” Hart said. “It may be too high and we cannot afford it. But it may cost less than we think.”
Hart also questioned whether one big dam, proposed at Lower Shaker Lake, along with dredging for another $14 million, is better than two smaller dams and “is it really that much better to go with two streams than a lake?”
Weiss said that was more of a preference than a technical question. Dreyfuss-Wells added that “this is not a judgment call — the dam provides no functionality, no stormwater management benefit and needs to be removed.”
Dreyfuss-Wells pointed to a “three-year, $10 million effort” undertaken by the NEORSD, believed to be a reference to its new regional stormwater management plan.
Cobb, who grew up in Shaker Heights after his family moved over from the Lee-Harvard neighborhood, questioned why the whole proposal was presented by the NEORSD at the beginning of June as a “fait accomplis,” adding “we owe it to ourselves and our citizens to see if we agree.”
Council President Jason Stein and Vice President Kahlil Seren said they tended to side with the sewer district on the issue, citing the costs that the cities could be saddled with.
Shaker Heights City Council had yet to take any action on the matter as of Monday night.
Going Green
Cleveland Heights resident Christine Heggie said during the public comment portion of the regular council meeting that she feels it is “disingenuous to bring up the concept of ‘transparency’ in all of this.”
Heggie argued that she put up with the smell of rotting fish after the Horseshoe Lake was drained around two years ago, but did so with the idea that the lake would be back. But the plans to fix the dam kept getting delayed.
“Yet for two years, the sewer district didn’t mention any of this,” Heggie said, noting that “along the way, they put $3 million (actually closer to double that amount) into building a (”Class 2″) dam and dredging Green Lake,“ also known as “the Duck Pond.”
Heggie also pointed to the disparity in costs between actual work done at Green Lake and estimates for Horseshoe Lake.
“And then, suddenly we’re told that it’s urgent,” Heggie said, calling for an “independent, unbiased assessment. Right now, we have only one perspective — the sewer district. Is that transparent?”
Cleveland Heights Law Director Bill Hanna said that the city would likely approach its engineering firm, GPD, about researching the work or recommending a consultant.
If the cost of the independent study was expected to exceed $50,000, the contract would come back to council for approval.
