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Hospital works to reduce environmental impact at proposed outpatient medical center, ER
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Wednesday, Sep 24, 2008
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation has submitted revised plans for a new $71.5 million medical facility in northern Summit County.
The revision is designed to reduce the potential impact to rare cold-water streams, wetlands and groundwater at the 86-acre site off Darrow Road (state Route 91) south of Interstate 480 in Twinsburg.
The clinic's consultants, HZW Environmental Consultants LLC and Shaw Environmental, revised the plans and submitted them last week to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for consideration.
The revisions reposition buildings, parking lots and the storm water retention basin to minimize the environmental impact, the clinic said.
EPA spokesman Mike Settles said no ruling has been made on the revised plans; the agency intends to meet, perhaps next week, with the clinic and its consultants.
The clinic wants to build an outpatient medical center and 24-hour emergency room. The four-story, 168,500-square-foot facility, to be called the Cleveland Clinic Twinsburg Family Health and Surgery Center, could open in late 2009 and create 300 jobs. In-patient care could be added in the future.
Approval is needed from the Ohio EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill in wetlands and small streams.
The Ohio EPA has expressed concerns about the environmental impact of the project. In a Sept. 9 letter, EPA Director Chris Korleski said the project might not win state approval as initially
designed.
The revised plan ''fundamentally changes our initial proposal in numerous ways in order to respond to the concerns raised by your staff regarding streams and wetlands,'' Brian J. Smith, the clinic's director of strategic project development, wrote Sept. 12 to Korleski.
Smith said this includes, Smith said, shrinking the developed area from 34 acres to 28 acres, using piers in the building's foundation to reduce the impact on groundwater and preserving additional streams and wetlands.
The impact on streams on-site was reduced from 4,335 to 2,067 linear feet, he said, and only 232 feet of the cold-water headwater streams that drain to Tinkers Creek would be affected. The area of affected wetlands was reduced from 3.14 to 1.36 acres.
A protected undeveloped area is being expanded from 30 to 42 acres and the impact on one key high-quality wetland has been reduced by 90 percent, he said.
The clinic remains ''very concerned . . . and particularly troubled'' by statements by the EPA about the potential impact to groundwater, Smith said.
''We anticipate that the clear, concise depiction of the limited nature of proposed streams and wetlands impacts (and the restructured foundation system) in our revised application will alleviate your groundwater concerns,'' he told Korleski.
Smith said the plan ''demonstrates the Cleveland Clinic's commitment to environmental integrity'' and it ''represents tremendous investment and effort'' on the part of the clinic.
The Ohio EPA's Twinsburg office will make a recommendation to Korleski on whether the clinic should be granted a water quality certificate. The final decision rests with Korleski.
The clinic needs state approval before it can seek approval from the Corps of Engineers.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
The Cleveland Clinic Foundation has submitted revised plans for a new $71.5 million medical facility in northern Summit County.
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