Posted on April 28, 2016
By Thomas Jewell, cleveland.com
With a community cost sharing plan back on the table, the city will use part of its share to pay $500,000 of a $2.3 million dredging project at Green Lake, perhaps better known as the “Duck Pond.”
Officials with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District met with City Council earlier this month to discuss the project, set to get underway in July, with most of the work to be completed this year.
Nearly three years ago, the city signed on with NEORSD for an expanded $4 million project that also would have covered repairs to the Green Lake dam on Andover Drive, as well as the Horseshoe Lake dam.
But the work was put on hold when some of the district’s 56 communities appealed the collection of a new stormwater fee from customers that adds up to $41 million.
Those appeals have been exhausted, and Shaker can once again use the roughly $205,000 of its annual “Community Cost Share” to pay off the local match of $500,000 split over five years for the Green Lake dredging.
The city currently has a CCS account balance of over $112,000, and NEORSD officials are now evaluating the Andover and Horseshoe Lake dams for future projects.
“Shaker Heights can expect to receive a little over $200,000 a year,” said Jeff Jowett, NEORSD Watershed Team Leader. “And they can decide how to use it.”
For now, the goal is to remove as much as 4 feet of sediment that has accumulated in the man-made 6.5-acre lake constructed in 1911 at an original average depth of 6 feet.
Currently, the average depth of the lake is now about 2 feet, and dredging will improve water quality not only there, but downstream for Doan Brook as well, Jowett noted.
The lake’s capacity to hold more rainwater might be slightly increased as well, and turbidity, or cloudiness in the water, will likely be reduced. Dredging will also improve oxygen levels in the lake and reduce algae and duckweed blooms.
As for the dredged material, it will be taken to at least two “de-watering” locations: public property on the west (Andover dam) side of the lake, and across Attleboro Road to unused sections of the Shaker Heights Country Club.
“They’re going to dry out the dredged sediment before it’s transported,” said Jeri Chaikin, the city’s Chief Administrative Officer, noting that a public meeting on the plan is scheduled for 7 p.m. on May 16 in the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Building, 3450 Lee Road.
Throughout the duration of the dredging work, traffic on Parkland Drive will be reduced to local access only between Attleboro and Lee roads, so the street can be used for truck access.
“If we’d have gone with building a temporary construction road, we’d have to take down a bunch of trees,” Jowett said. “And it’s easier to fix a road than trees.”
The work that is expected to carry into next year will be the restoration of the streets, as well as replanting of grass and flowers.
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