The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Completed revetment wall will protect Raw Water Pump Station, officials say
As erosion eats away at the Lake Erie shoreline, officials celebrated the completion of a 600-foot revetment wall that will protect the Lake County Raw Water Pump Station that serves about 40,000 residents on the county’s east side.
The pump station at 1399 Bacon Road in Painesville Township sits atop a 60-foot-high bluff that rises above a beach. Severe erosion from wind and waves along the Lake Erie Bluff put the station and pipe at risk of structural failure, thereby potentially affecting drinking water service, according to the Lake County Department of Utilities.
Without the revetment, the shoreline would have continued eroding, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District.
Among those on hand June 18 to celebrate the completion of the roughly $3.7 million project were U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District Lt. Col. Jason Toth, U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Banbridge Township and all three Lake County commissioners.
Toth said the completion of the project would not have been possible without the partnership of the Army Corps of Engineers, Lake County Department of Utilities and federal and local officials.
“I was proud to work alongside Lake County officials and the Army Corps of Engineers to get this project off the ground back in 2018 and was honored to join them today to celebrate its completion,” Joyce said.
That year Joyce announced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Buffalo
District has awarded a $3.4 million contract to Eastlake-based Huffman Equipment Rental for the project.
The project was conducted on the Army Corps of Engineers’ Continuing Authority Program, Beach Restoration and Shoreline Protection.
Lake County Sanitary Engineer Randy Rothlisberger told the News-Herald in 2018 the bluff was eroding about a foot or two every two years. Rothlisberger was also on hand to celebrate the project’s completion.
According to officials, a structural failure of the pump station — or any of its key components, such as its water intake pipe into Lake Erie — would require the county to acquire an alternative water supply until a new pump station could be built. The estimated cost to build a replacement facility is about $10 million and would take two years to complete.