Ohio A.G. says Brownhelm Twp. dam is unsafe

The Ohio Attorney General filed a lawsuit Sept. 20 in Lorain County Common Pleas Court seeking an injunction against a company that owns a Brownhelm Township dam.

The suit names Lugli Investments LLC, of Elyria, as its sole defendant.

According to the filing, the company owns the Lake Haven Dam, which is located on an unnamed tributary to Lake Erie about 435 feet upstream from state Route 6 in Brownhelm Township.

As a Class II dam, the failure of the structure would result in damage or disruption of Route 6, but loss of human life would not be “probable.”

The suit seeks an injunction against the company forcing it to comply with orders from the chief of the Division of Water Resources in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to “remedy the dam safety violations.”

Attempts to contact Lugli Investments were unsuccessful.

Ohio law says dams must pass a certain percentage of the probable flood level; owners must develop an operation, maintenance and inspection manual as well as an emergency action plan should the dam fail; dams must have a spillway system; dams must have an emergency overflow spillway; and dams must include a device which drains the reservoir in a reasonable amount of time for emergencies or maintenance.

Also, owners of dams must “seek and obtain written approval of the chief of the Division of Water Resources before repairing, improving, altering or removing a dam,” the suit says.

After multiple inspections, the Lake Haven Dam was found unsafe, and on Jan. 13, 2014, the dam failed “through the upstream portion of the principal spillway,” according to the suit.

As a result, Lugli Investments was issued a notice of violation that required the company to immediately retain the services of a professional engineer to bring the structure into compliance with Ohio law, immediately lower the lake level by six feet, submit a plan to maintain the lowered lake level by Feb. 14 of that year, complete all work to maintain the lowered level by Feb. 26 of that year and submit an acceptable schedule for repair by May 1 of that year, the suit says.

The company lowered the lake level by six feet and expressed interest in repairing the structure, the filing says.

It hired an engineering company and submitted plans in late-June 2015. The water resources division requested revisions to the plans the following month, but the revisions were never submitted, the filing claims.

In May 2016, the company was sent another notice of violation with another set of deadlines.

Despite a follow up letter later that month, the company did not respond, the filing says.

When the water resources division met with the company in June of that year, the company expressed a desire to change the structure to a Class IV dam, which is exempt from some of the laws they were out of compliance with, the filing says.

Lugli Investments submitted a plan in October 2016 for this work and the plan was approved, according to the suit.

The company did not meet a November 2016, deadline on the work leading to a July 27, 2017, order from the chief of the Division of Water Resources, the suit says.

The order found the company in violation of dam safety laws due to it starting work on the dam without first filing an application, the dam’s principal spillway failed, the dam has insufficient flood capacity to safely pass the design flood, the company does not have an emergency action plan or operation, maintenance or inspection manual, the dam does not have an emergency spillway and the dam does not have a device to permit draining, the filing says.

The order required the company to maintain the lake level at 10 feet below the spillway elevation and to repair, breach or modify the dam.

Lugli Investments did not comply with the order, the suit claims.

The attorney general is asking the court to order Lugli Investments to stop violating Ohio dam safety laws and to maintain the lake at least 10 feet below the spillway elevation and follow a tight deadline on modifying the structure to make it a Class IV dam and complete construction by Dec. 30, 2018.

According to the filing, the company owns the Lake Haven Dam, which is located on an unnamed tributary to Lake Erie about 435 feet upstream from state Route 6 in Brownhelm Township