Monday, October 27, 2003
A catastrophe was narrowly avoided, the project manager said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
and TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS
GIRARD -- The mayor is urging that the city cut its losses by breaching Lower Girard Lake dam, but a councilman says breaching should be a last resort because it could cause more losses.
Mayor James J. Melfi, who did not attend a meeting Thursday afternoon between city council and state and federal officials concerning the fate of the dam, released earlier in the day a letter calling for total breaching of the dam.
But Councilman Charles Doran, D-4th, chairman of council's properties research committee, said breaching could expose the city to lawsuits from lakefront homeowners claiming their property was being devalued.
"Once we breach the dam, federal funding dollars to ever rebuild it are gone," Doran said. "However, once you fix that dam, if you cut it down 12.5 feet, now you've still got a project that has some viability and it has some potential of being rebuilt," he said.
Kathleen J. Anderson, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, said that based on hydraulic studies, the deteriorating dam "provides absolutely no flood control benefit." But Doran said that based on the area's flooding history, he thinks its removal could cause flooding of streamside homes.
People at risk
The city narrowly averted a potential catastrophe as two July storms, totaling about 8 inches of rain, nearly sent water spilling over the dam, and such a spillover could have caused the dam to fail, Anderson said. "It won't pass a probable maximum flood," she said. "People downstream are in jeopardy because that dam could suddenly fail without warning."
The city is faced with a predicament because it has already spent $1,444,500 of the $2.5 million Congress approved for repair of the dam, most of it on engineering studies. The remaining federal money would be barely sufficient to demolish the dam, Anderson said.
Doran said the city has an additional $600,000 from a state matching grant that could be applied toward dam repair.
The Corps has rejected the proposal, made in a March 2003 council resolution, for a temporary $1.84 million repair that would lower the dam and the lake level until funds could be found for a more permanent solution. A permanent repair would cost $3.2 million, Anderson said.
Rick Leonard, district director for U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, said additional federal money for the project might be derived from a water resources bill, which has passed the U.S. House but is stalled in the Senate.
Melfi said in the letter directed to city residents, council, the Corps of Engineers and local state and federal legislators that they should find grants to build sewer and water lines for development of the 235 acres around Upper Girard Lake.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says it will breach the dam because of its deteriorating condition unless the city shows specific time frames for financial arrangements to breach or repair the 1920-vintage structure itself.
In his letter, Melfi pointed out the city has been under a state-imposed fiscal emergency since Aug. 8, 2001. "Although many cuts were made at that time, additional cutbacks loom today due to a reduction in income tax revenue," he wrote. "The city must shed its liabilities and utilize its assets."
The mayor said the dam should be demolished, eliminating a liability, not only now but in the future. The city can then use the basin of the lower lake to establish a wetland mitigation bank, which would benefit the environment as well as be a financial asset, Melfi said.