East Cleveland's own city service yard has landed in the county's crosshairs, with health officials branding the Eddy Road site a public health nuisance after finding tires, scrap metal and piles of mixed yard waste stacked across the municipal property.
According to a declaration from the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, those uncovered tires are a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, the decomposing yard waste can heat up and ignite, and runoff from the mess could foul nearby storm drains. Mayor Sandra Morgan said the city has met with county officials and is working on a cleanup plan.
County inspectors' findings
In a Feb. 10 notice of violation, program manager Jeff Hanchar wrote that "All of these items need to be removed from the ground and disposed of properly" and ordered East Cleveland to stop hauling municipal solid waste to the service yard, according to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.
The letter singles out scrap tires, scrap metal and contaminated yard waste, citing Ohio laws that prohibit open dumping. Inspectors also told the city to secure the perimeter and to have fire suppression ready while crews remove material from the site, a clear sign they are worried about both trespassers and potential fires.
Mayor seeks state help; cleanup plan
Mayor Sandra Morgan told Signal Cleveland the city has already sat down with county health officials and that "we're working on it." She said East Cleveland has applied for the Ohio EPA's no-fault tire cleanup service, while the rest of the trash is expected to be shipped to a Rumpke transfer station, according to the outlet's reporting.
Morgan also said the city plans to ramp up enforcement on properties where debris is dumped and then bill those property owners for cleanup costs, plus a 10 percent administrative fee. The message to habitual dumpers is simple enough: keep treating vacant lots like landfills and it will eventually show up on your tab.
Long history of dumping raises stakes
Residents and officials say the Eddy Road lot is hardly an isolated case. It is one of several East Cleveland sites that have been used for illegal dumping over the years, creating a pattern that has been expensive to unwind.
Some of the larger cleanup efforts nearby have only moved forward with state intervention and big public price tags. The Arco Recycling debris pile, for example, needed a state-supervised cleanup that cost about $9.1 million, according to reporting by ideastream. That history helps explain why county staff pressed for the public-nuisance designation at the city yard, which can open the door to more aggressive remediation tools.
What happens next
The board's notice cites sections of the Ohio Revised Code and state administrative rules that prohibit open dumping and spell out tire-storage standards, and it states that inspectors will return to verify that East Cleveland is complying, according to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.
The Ohio EPA told Signal Cleveland it will work with local officials on how to handle the scrap tires while the agency reviews the city's cleanup application. City officials say they are lining up contractors and expect visible removal work to start once the EPA review is complete and logistics are in place, which means neighbors could soon see whether the troubled lot finally starts to look less like a dump and more like a city facility.
