CUYAHOGA COUNTY DISTRICT BOARD OF HEALTH

ARCO RECYCLING, INC.
1705 NOBLE ROAD, LLC
1705 Noble Road
East Cleveland, Ohio 44112
Applicant

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Case No. 2011-003
Resolution No. 2011 - 58

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Re: Declaration of Nuisance Pursuant
To ORC 3701.01 and Chapter 3767

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FINDINGS OF FACT AND
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

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The above stated matter came for hearing on May 24, 2017 before this Board on request
of the Health Commissioner seeking a declaration of nuisance pursuant to Ohio Revised Code
(ORC) 3707.01 and ORC Chapter 3767 against property owner 1705 Noble Road, LLC and
operator ARCO Recycling, Inc. The Health Commissioner and Board of Health staff appeared
before this Board and presented evidence and related materials and exhibits. The Cuyahoga
County District Board of Health makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law in
the above referenced matter:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1.
Pursuant to Ohio Revised Code (ORC) Chapter 3714, and, specifically, Section 3714.05,
The Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH or The Board) is the delegated authority through
the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) for licensing, inspection and enforcement of
the statutes, rules and regulations related to Construction and Demolition Debris (C&DD)
facilities within Cuyahoga County; Ohio, and
2.
Pursuant to ORC 3714.0l(D), "'Disposal' means the discharge, deposit, injection,
dumping, spilling, leaking, emitting, or placing of any construction and demolition debris into or
on any land or ground or surface water or into the air, except if the disposition or placement
constitutes storage;" and
3.
Pursuant to ORC 3714.0l(K), '"Storage' means the holding of construction and
demolition debris for a temporary period in such a manner that it remains retrievable and
substantially unchanged and, at the end of the period, is disposed of or reused or recycled in a
beneficial manner;" and
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 4.
Pursuant to ORC 3707.01, CCBH has a duty to abate and remove all nuisances within its
jurisdiction and authority to order abatement and removal of any premises nuisance where, in the
opinion of the Board, it is a danger to the public health and safety; and
5.
Further, in accordance with ORC 3707.01, "The Board may, by its officers and
employees, remove, abate, suspend, alter, or otherwise improve or purify such nuisance and
certify the costs and expense thereof to the county auditor, to be assessed against the property
and thereby made a lien upon it and collected as other taxes;" and
6.
1705 Noble Road, LLC became incorporated in 2014 and obtained ownership of the 1705
Noble Road, East Cleveland, Ohio property from the City of East Cleveland, Ohio.
7.
ARCO Recycling, Inc. (hereinafter, "ARCO") became incorporated in Ohio on April 14,
2014, upon information and belief, obtained the right from 1705 Noble Road LLC to use the
property at 1705 Noble Road, East Cleveland, Ohio (hereinafter, ''the property"), and
commenced operating the property as a C&DD recycling and processing facility at a time when
there were no statutes, rules or regulations in the State of Ohio that regulated the temporary
storage and processing of said materials;, and
8.
ARCO was a designated an approved dump site for demolition contractors under contract
with the Cuyahoga County Land Bank for dumping C&DD materials from demolition of
residential structures in Cuyahoga County; and
9.
Over the course of time, from April 2014 to January 2017, ARCO amassed and disposed
of over 300,000 cubic yards of C&DD material at the property, creating a extraordinarily large
pile of more than 200,000 cubic yards of C&DD material, comprised of compacted
unrecognizable materials, over 40 feet in height, with a barrier wall of hard fill, co-mingled or
mixed C&DD material and other non-recognizable materials as a perimeter berm approximately
10 feet wide and approximately 8 to 10 feet high; and
10.
ARCO, in its original business plan provided to East Cleveland pledged to promptly
recycle the C&DD material, process reclaimed materials for profit, and truck the remaining nonrecyclable materials to certified C&DD landfills for dumping or disposal; and
11.
ARCO failed to make any reasonable effort to recycle or process said C&DD materials,
so that the C&DD materials received resulted in the creation of the extraordinarily large pile
comprised of well over 200,000 cubic yards of C&DD co-mingled material that is now
compacted and, in many respects, non-recognizable or reusable as recycled materials, said
materials being improperly stored on the property well in excess of the two-year statutory period
prescribed in ORC 3714.0l(C); and
12.
The property abuts several residential homes whose owners and residents, over the course
of the two plus years, had been forced to endure loud construction noises, dust, odors, a large
unsightly dump pile, and the possibility of environmental hazards over time and certainly during
operations; and
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 13.
This type of facility or operation is rarely approved or permitted in a residential area, with
such close proximity to residences; and
14.
Neighboring residential property owners and/or tenants have continually complained to
East Cleveland, CCBH and the media about the blight created by the ARCO operation; and
15.
On January 17, 2017, after more than two years of monitoring the operation at the
property, the Ohio EPA by and through the Ohio Attorney General's Office, issued a cease and
desist order and declared the ARCO operation an illegal dump site in violation of Ohio law; and
16.
The City of East Cleveland, which is within the jurisdiction of CCBH, has requested that
the Board take action to abate the nuisance on the property or order its abatement, and
17.
The City of East Cleveland does not have sufficient funds to perform the abatement or
remediation necessary to completely remove all of the materials on the property; and
18.
Upon information and belief, the property owners and owners of ARCO had stated that
they do not have sufficient funds to abate the nuisance; and
19.
The estimated cost of removing all of the materials on the property is approximately Six
Million Dollars ($6,000,000) as determined by the Ohio EPA from measurements of the size and
amount of debris and consultation with industry experts; and
20.
The ARCO use of the property has generated such a large public outcry as to demand that
the Board take this action to declare the property a nuisance in violation of ORC Chapters 3714
and ORC 3707.01 and Chapter 3767in order to proceed to clean up the site as is authorized
pursuant to ORC 3707.01 and other similar laws.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1.

The Board incorporates by reference herein all of the Findings set forth above, and the
same are hereby adopted. The Board finds that sufficient evidence exists to find and
declare that:
a. The ARCO property at 1705 Noble Road, East Cleveland, Ohio, and the ARCO
operations as previously described in the preamble, are in violation of ORC Chapter 3714
and the definitions of disposal and storage as cited herein above; and
b. ARCO RECYCLING, INC.:
1. failed to timely recycle C&DD material;
2. stored C&DD material longer than permitted by ORC 3714.0l(C) and/or
3714.0l(K);
3. received C&DD materials for well over two years with minimal removal of
material;

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 4. created a extraordinarily large pile of co-mingled C&DD material that became
compacted to the point that large trucks and heavy equipment that were driven on
the pile further compacted the materials; and
5. the compaction of the materials rendered most of the materials to be
unrecognizable as C&DD, in the opinion of the Board's expert sanitarians, such
that the material is no longer susceptible of being recycled; and
c. Finally, the fai lure to timely recycle the materials or move them off site to a certified,
licensed C&DD landfill has created a nuisance in violation of Ohio law. ARCO has failed
to remove the materials as ordered by the Ohio EPA in its notice of violation issued on
January 17, 2017, and is believed to have insufficient funds to remove the material and
return the property to its former condition.
6.

This Board hereby declares the property at 1705 Noble Road, East Cleveland, Ohio a

nuisance and orders remediation of the property and/or abatement of the nuisance. If the
property owner or operator are unwilling or unable to perform the remediation and/or abatement
as ordered, the Cuyahoga County Board of Health may perform the task provided there are
sufficient funds from other sources for engaging and completion of the work. Any and all such
costs shall be determined by the CCBH Chief Financial Officer and reported back to this Board
for further evaluation toward assessing said costs against the tax duplicate for the property
pursuant to the authority of ORC 3707.01 and Chapter 3767 of the Ohio Revised Code.
APPROVED BY:
CUYAHOGA COUNTY DISTRICT
BOARD OF HEALTH

BY:

tl1~x.m~

Debbie L. Moss, President

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//kc::=:

/Gregorylfl Hall

Sherrie Williams

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 NOTICE OF RIGHT TO APPEAL.
This decision constitutes a final order and is subject to further review only on appeal
timely presented. A Notice of Appeal of this decision to the Sewage Treatment System
Appeals Board shall be filed, in writing, with the Cuyahoga County Board of Health
within 30 days of the mailing of this order. Altematively,a Notice of Appeal to the
Court of Common Pleas must be filed in the office of the Clerk of Courts for
Common Pleas Court within 30 days of the mailing of this order. For further
information on this process, you are advised to consult an attorney.

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