WARREN, Ohio – A Trumbull County Common Pleas Court judge has dismissed court action by county commissioners and Warren Township trustees to stop the removal of the Leavittsburg Dam.
The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed last February, listing Trumbull County MetroParks, the dam’s owner, as the defendant. Judge Ronald J. Rice dismissed it Tuesday.
The Leavittsburg Dam, built in the early 20th century, is one of six low-head dams slated for removal in the Mahoning River Corridor Revitalization Plan developed by Eastgate Regional Council of Governments. The Trumbull County MetroParks secured grant funding, beginning in 2022, to complete removal of the dam.
Commissioners and township trustees in their court filings argued, based on a report from engineering company DLZ Inc., that there were risks to removing the dam, including riverbank instability, tree collapses, roadway damage and instability of an older dam in the area.
“There is no question of fact regarding these potential issues, as defendant acknowledges the same,” the judge wrote.
But the park’s mitigation efforts will address those concerns, he wrote.
While commissioners and the township argue that issues could still occur outside of the project area, RiverReach Construction, the company contracted to remove the dam, informed the park that it should increase monitoring outside the project area and investigate and seek funding for any needs that may develop. The park will follow recommendations to monitor and address any risks that may develop outside the project area, its executive director said.
The judge called the issues cited by the plaintiffs hypothetical and speculative and added that the plaintiffs have failed to “put forth any evidence to demonstrate that defendant is refusing to adhere to RiverReach’s recommendations.”
The plaintiffs also alleged that if the dam is removed and water levels decrease, residential septic systems submerged in the river and discharging into the water will be exposed, leading to sewage discharging onto the land.
“This sewage discharge will not be created by Defendant’s removal of the dam – it is already happening and, unfortunately, appears to have been happening for a long time according to the consent orders submitted by defendant,” Rice wrote in his decision.
Returning the river to its natural depths by removing the dam “is merely making such discharge more noticeable to those who reside along the river,” the judge wrote. “As plaintiffs fail to allege that removal of the dam will actually create sewage discharge, this is not an injury that creates standing.”
He wrote that commissioners and the township failed to allege an actual injury.
Removal of the dam was set to start June 1 and be completed by year’s end. The plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction sought to stop the park from incurring further expense for dam removal until December 2027 when construction of sewers in the Meadowbrook area of Warren Township, adjacent to the Mahoning River, will be completed.
Rice’s judgment entry said the plaintiffs’ claims to support “such drastic injunctive relief are tenuous at best.”
The plaintiffs assert that by removing the dam without regard for potential issues that may arise, the park isn’t acting in a manner conducive to the general welfare.
“The court finds that evidence does not support such a finding,” the judge wrote.
The plaintiffs pointed to RiverReach’s Feb 25 letter that recommends further investigation into the effects outside the project area, suggesting that the park has failed to do due diligence in progressing with the dam removal.
“The evidence before the court clearly shows that defendant has been working toward this endeavor for years,” the judge wrote. “Its construction team has researched the potential effects of the decreased water levels and has accordingly detailed what will be put into place to negate or avoid any negative impacts.”
And the plaintiffs haven’t made any allegation that the park is refusing to adhere to its construction company’s recommendations to mitigate potential risks outside of the project area, he wrote.
“Further, while plaintiffs are focused on this limited stretch of the Mahoning River, the court finds that removal of the dam in an effort to restore the Mahoning River is an act to serve the citizens of Trumbull County as a whole and those surrounding counties,” Rice’s entry said. And he found that the plaintiffs aren’t likely to succeed on the merits that the park “has failed to act in a manner conducive to the general welfare …”
He called it bewildering that commissioners and the township “are content with the sewage continually being discharged into the river and ask to penalize the defendant, and the years’ worth of time and resources expended to research and plan for the dam removal, for an issue that defendant has no part of – an issue that was solely within the control of Warren [Township] and Trumbull County.”
The Meadowbrook sewer project is the first phase of a four-phase plan to install sanitary sewer lines in Trumbull County. It’s part of a consent decree between the county and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency due to failed off-lot septic systems.