by Phil Keren
Editor
A Fairlawn-based company has decided to scrap its plan to build a hydroelectric power plant at Gorge Metro Park.
In a June 12 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Metro Hydroelectric Co. LLC announced the company was surrendering its permit to build the plant.
Metro Hydroelectric, a subsidiary of Advanced Hydro Solutions, planned to divert water from the Ohio Edison Gorge Dam for the plant. Water would have been sent through a pipe into a powerhouse with turbines that would generate electricity. The dam is on the Cuyahoga River in Akron near the border of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls. The project would have cost about $5 million and the plant was expected to generate electricity for about 2,000 customers. Metro Hydroelectric Co. was formed in 2003 to pursue this project, according to a company spokesman.
Parks and environmental groups -- including Metro Parks Serving Summit County and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency -- had raised objections to the project. Despite a court battle with the parks, the company was not able to gain access to Gorge Metro Park to conduct preliminary tests on the land which "would have demonstrated the benign nature of this project," Metro Hydroelectric Chief Financial Officer M. Clifford Phillips wrote in the June 12 letter.
"We are delighted," said Metro Parks Serving Summit County spokesman Nate Eppink. "It's been a long fight, but we saved the Gorge Metro Park."
Phillips said the company decided to drop its plans after evaluating its position, noting Metro Hydroelectric is pursuing other projects where they are "welcome" by the local organizations.
"We're going to go where we're welcome, and not where we're snubbed. [The Gorge project] is our smallest project [in terms of electric generation]," said Phillips. "It's cost us a lot of money." Phillips declined to say how much the company had spent on litigation, but added, "It was a big number."
"It was a hard one to lose," said Phillips. "It would've benefited the citizens of Northeast Ohio." He noted his company is not planning to pursue another hydroelectric project in Ohio.
"We got what we wanted," said Keith Shy, Director-Secretary of Metro Parks. Shy noted the preliminary testing that the company wanted to do would've involved the removal of trees and road construction. Shy also said there was no assurance that the project would've have gone forward following the preliminary tests.
Phillips said the company wanted to examine issues such as wetland delineation, water quality, aesthetics and recreation.
"[The studies] would've provided a lot of great information for the parks," said Phillips, who noted the data collected would've helped Metro Parks decide whether they wanted to support the project.
Shy also said the project "would've involved some loss of control" for Metro Parks since some of the area would've been "controlled by a private entity."
"This project would have certainly led to a decline in the number of people who hike the Gorge," said Eppink. "This would've destroyed aesthetics."
Eppink added the project would have also led to loss of animal and plant habitats. He noted there are some "rare and endangered species" of plants in the park.
"We're just absolutely delighted," said Elaine Marsh, co-founder and conservation chair with Friends of the Crooked River, which is an advocate for maintaining "swimmable and fishable standards" in the river. "We think it's a huge victory for the river."
The project "would have eliminated the emissions of 2.5 [megawatt hours] of coal generation and the future increased costs associated with coal both financially and environmentally over the next 100 years to the community," wrote Phillips in the June 12 letter.
"I'm not against hydro power if it makes sense," said Shy, who added, "Our job is not to allow that park land to be destroyed."
Marsh noted the opposition to this project was concerned with preserving the parks and restoring the water quality of the Cuyahoga River.
"This outcome really supports those values," said Marsh.
Steve Tuckerman, an environmental specialist with the Division of Surface Water for the Ohio EPA, said his agency was concerned the project would potentially harm a segment of the Cuyahoga River through a "de-watering" process, and prohibit the EPA from working to ensure the river met state and federal water quality standards.
Under the proposed project, Tuckerman said fish and other river creatures would have had less area for their habitats. Tuckerman said his organization "did not think the amount of electricity [the project] generated was worth the degradation of that segment of the Cuyahoga River."
Tuckerman said the Ohio EPA wants to study the feasibility of removing the Ohio Edison Gorge Dam. If the study supports removal, "that's something we would like to pursue," said Tuckerman. If the project had moved forward, it would've prohibited the Ohio EPA from doing that study for 50 years, according to Tuckerman.
E-mail: pkeren@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-686-3940