Update - Residents and City Clash

Update and Cleveland.com article

Even before the EPA has allowed Shaker Heights Department of Public Works to work outside of the original roadway plan, the city allowed our Lomond sidewalks to be removed, excavated, and healthy tree branches sawed off without EPA prior approval.  

The  city has permitted construction workers to DRIVE all over the tree lawns to damage root systems in order to remove side walks. One tree lawn has a 360 degree turn in it accomplished by a Fabrizi contractor. This took place on Tuesday,  July 21 after a  work session with city council. Today, the city sawed down healthy branches that might "be in the way" of installation of a dewatering machine location whose foot print is no where near the tree branch removed.  This is gaslighting. This is purposely harming trees to later announce well, they were declining anyway.  

The city meets with the EPA tomorrow, July 23 expecting to get a rubber stamp.  These activites need an environmental review to examine factors such as the loss of this tree canopy and the impact of dewatering next to our properties in the sidewalks.  Everything this petition is about has not changed.  This is our neighborhood tree canopy.  It is not a matter of percents when you look at the number of people who purposely walk here even from other parts of Shaker Heights to find shade, cooler temperatures, and beauty.  We are in a part of the city with very little green space.  This canopy matters!  Article follows: 

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- A state assessment of nine oaks in the way of a reconfigured sewer project jibes with concerns logged by the city in its plans to take the trees down.

An Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) forester conducted a July 8 inspection of the oaks in the path of the Lynnfield-Lomond sewer project.

That inspection came back “right in line with ours,” Assistant Public Works Director of Operations Charles Orlowski told City Council this week.

Meanwhile, the city had a July 23 meeting scheduled with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials on the “Categorical Exclusion (CATEX)" granted in 2023 for a previous iteration of the $8.3 million project that called for saving the trees.

The CATEX allowed the city to bypass an environmental assessment of the work -- which some residents would like to see reopened.

Public Works Assistant Director of Infrastructure Christian Maier told council Tuesday (July 21) that while a new or revised CATEX application might be needed, he did not expect that an environmental impact assessment would be ordered.

“The health and safety concerns of raw sewage discharges outweigh the benefits of trying to keep the trees,” Maier said during the council work session.

“Unfortunately, the trees are going to be sacrificed.”

As he and ODNR Regional Urban Forester Matt Leiden concluded, many of the trees have already “peaked and are in decline,” Orlowski said.

They agreed that removing the trees on the south side of Lomond between Latimore and Lynnfield roads will benefit the oaks on the north side -- “to salvage and keep them in pristine condition,” Orlowski said.

Earlier plans called for running the new sewers -- connected to 1,200 households -- under the street rather than digging trenches and “open-cut excavation” in the tree lawn.

But the city has since scrapped the “trenchless” approach to eliminate Shaker’s largest sanitary sewer overflow (SSO), which violates the federal Clean Water Act.

Some have pointed to the potential project cost increase of $2.6 million as the overriding factor in the city’s decision.

But Maier told council it has as much to do with “constructability,” given soil conditions, the water table in the area and underground utilities.

This week’s schedule involved more prep work for the installation of dewatering wells, including temporary removal of sandstone sidewalks to allow for drilling next week.

Lomond residents still have concerns about the dewatering process, which is expected to take about a month once it gets under way.

On Tuesday, residents presented city officials with more than 500 signatures gathered through a Change.org online petition calling for a pause in the project and an environmental review by the EPA.

In his concurring ODNR inspection, Leiden cited the potential effect of sewer installation in the roadway on the “critical root zones” for the oaks on both sides of the street.

He also warned that keeping the trees now slated for removal could cause further decline and susceptibility to pests and diseases.

This could include oak wilt, which Maier likened to Dutch elm disease in terms of potentially equal devastation to the city’s abundant oak trees.

Resident response

Consulting construction arborist Amanda Krakower remains close to the Lynnfield-Lomond project in her own way as well.

She and her young family have lived on Gridley Road since 2023, where they’ve been immersed in the construction zone for more than a year now -- navigating it with a stroller.

Krakower was working on a project -- including oak wilt precautions -- for the City of Cleveland Tuesday and was unable to tune in to the Shaker Heights council work session on Zoom.

But she heard about the discussion from neighbors.

“The problem with this project has been no respect whatsoever for tree protection,” Krakower said.

“Now they’re using ‘critical root zones’ as a justification for taking down those trees on Lomond.”

At this stage, Krakower said that strikes her as hypocritical.

“It’s more like a ‘gaslighting’ approach to the way this project has been managed up to now,” she said.

“If they want to talk about structural root loss, then most if not all of the trees on Lynnfield Road need to go now, too.”

Like other residents, Krakower pointed to a lack of project oversight -- at least until crunch time.

“I’ve given this contractor the benefit of the doubt for over a year now,” she said.

She also believes the city continues to downplay residents’ concerns.

“It’s pretty horrendous what they’ve allowed to happen -- especially to the trees -- by not holding this project to any industry standards.”

Lynnfield resident Jackie Green watched the Zoom meeting, saying afterward that “the city is circling the wagons.”

Lomond resident Sheela Das still has concerns about ongoing ponding in her driveway and a hole around a nearby storm sewer catch basin that previously was plugged with an inverted construction cone.

“The latest threat of losing the north-side trees and oak wilt running rampant are scare tactics and we are finding information to the contrary,” Das said.