\n[This essay, in abbreviated form, was in the <\/em>Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday.]<\/em><\/p>\n
In 2019 I walked over to Horseshoe Lake \u2013 which straddles Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights — to see a bit of nature. The lake was gone. It was missing. The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District had drained it.<\/p>\n
And NEORSD hasn\u2019t refilled it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen \u201cmissing dog\u201d signs on neighborhood phone poles, but I<\/span>\u2019ve never seen a \u201cmissing lake\u201d sign. Maybe I should put one up! Our family\u2019s dog went missing last week. She ran away. And then she was found. Unlike my lake.<\/p>\n Horseshoe Lake (and adjacent Lower Shaker Lake) are like Central Park for many East Side residents. The lakes are refuges — our lungs. The lakes are a blue space. Residents from throughout Cleveland come to Shaker Lakes for fresh air and to clear their heads. We hike, meditate, see birds, see blue water, and talk to neighbors who are walking dogs.<\/p>\n At the latest Cleveland Heights city council meeting, approximately 80 citizens showed up to protest NEORSD\u2019s removal of Horseshoe Lake and the sewer district’s proposed gutting of Lower Shaker Lake. Twenty residents spoke. Each had two minutes. What particularly ticked off many of the speakers was NEORSD\u2019s plan to chain-saw about a thousand trees, and plant saplings, plus add riprap (small rocks). The end result will be \u201cre-meandered\u201d streams where<\/span>\u00a0Horseshoe Lake was.<\/span><\/p>\n This\u00a0was<\/span> news to many locals. Shaker Lakes news does not bump off Trump\/Iran-level headlines. For instance, Paul Springstubb, a Cleveland Heights resident, didn\u2019t realize\u00a0<\/span>what\u2019s in store for Shaker Lakes. He does now. He just texted me, \u201cJust read about the packed Cleveland Heights council meeting. I can\u2019t believe residents of Shaker and Cleveland Heights won\u2019t vigorously work to stop a clear-cut of the lakes\u2019 trees! What I\u2019ve begun to fear is the natural feel of a lake — with its surrounding mature trees \u2013 turns into a totally over-planned, neatly groomed, \u2018just so\u2019 park.\u201d<\/p>\n Springstubb, who is a retired Shaker Heights High English teacher, continued:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cAll these saplings that the NEORSD plans to plant. That\u2019s not nature. That\u2019s upscale mall\/commercial planning, like Legacy Village, Lyndhurst<\/span>. Maybe we\u2019ll have loudspeakers in the scattered \u2018rocks\u2019 located along the redirected, but perfectly serpentine, streams. Maybe the speakers will play songs of the various birds that lost their homes at Horseshoe Lake.\u201d<\/p>\n NEORSD and saplings. Spare us<\/span>\u00a0the sunburn due to the lack of shade for the next 10 or 20 years while the saplings\u00a0mature.<\/span><\/p>\n If any Shaker Heights or Cleveland Heights elected officials acquiesce to the destruction of Horseshoe Lake and Lower Shaker Lake, their names should be registered i<\/span>n the imaginary Albert Porter Hall of Shame. (Porter was\u00a0a<\/span> county engineer who tried to run a freeway through the Shaker Lakes in the 1960s and was stopped by citizens civic groups.)<\/p>\n Cleveland Heights\u2019 new mayor, Jim Petras, said at the council meeting that the City\/ NEORSD deal to eliminate Horseshoe Lake was made before his time. That\u2019s not a good excuse, Mr. Mayor. The cities of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights can rectify this monumental screw up.<\/p>\n In the public-discussion portion of<\/span>\u00a0the<\/span> council meeting, Cleveland Heights resident Kevin Charnas nailed the situation in one sentence: \u201cThe sewer district just bulldozes stuff, pun intended.”<\/p>\n Erin Flanagan, a Cleveland Heights lawyer, has filed a federal suit to slow down the sewer people. Amy Weinfurtner of Shaker Heights has led citizen opposition to the lakes’\u00a0<\/span>destruction. She<\/span>\u00a0 If Horseshoe Lake or Lower Shaker Lake go away, they’re not coming back. Dogs come back. Lakes don’t.<\/p>\n Horseshoe Lake when it was a lake.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [This essay, in abbreviated form, was in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Sunday.] In 2019 I walked over to Horseshoe Lake \u2013 which straddles Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights — to see a bit of nature. The lake was gone. It was missing. The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District had drained it. 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