Councilman Brian Casey convened a Utilities Committee hearing in Cleveland on December 16 to examine why the Harvard Refuse landfill in Slavic Village was excluded from the city’s subaward under a county-led Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG).

Slavic Village Development planning director Crystal Sierra told the committee that residents have watched the landfill “fester” for years and that the community was owed “an apology and an explanation” after learning the Harvard site would not be included in Cleveland’s work under the grant. Sierra said the organization’s submission to the council included a timeline, recent photos and a history of court-engaged receivership and local complaints about rock piles, open access and broken methane pipes.

The CPRG, described by Cuyahoga County’s Mike Foley, is part of federal clean-energy funding created alongside the Inflation Reduction Act and administered by the EPA. County officials said the coalition’s successful application totals about $129,000,000 and originally included roughly 63 megawatts of landfill-sited solar across several brownfield properties in Cuyahoga County and partner cities. Foley said the county and its partners expected the award to enable solar development, bring sites out of receivership and fund maintenance improvements.

But Cleveland Public Power (CPP) Commissioner Aman Danielson told the committee the city could not move forward with Harvard as part of the city’s subaward because of three primary obstacles: time, scope and cost. “We were running out the clock,” Danielson said, and federal guidance and administrative priorities shifted during negotiations. Danielson said detailed interconnection engineering showed the Harvard site posed higher costs and broader scope than initially estimated and that pursuing it risked the viability of other projects and CPP customers.

CEP Renewables’ senior counsel, identified in the hearing as Mike Wise, told the committee the proposed solar project would not remove buried waste and that a complete landfill cleanup would cost an estimated $50 million to $100 million. He added that the project would address surface maintenance problems — removing rock piles, improving fencing and creating ongoing site management — and would move the parcel from receivership to a responsible owner who could maintain the site.

City and county officials also disputed how much detailed engineering had been completed for Harvard. Council members and the Office of Sustainability said a fully engineered interconnection study was never completed because the county–city subaward had not been finalized; CPP officials countered that internal analyses indicated interconnection at the identified substation would be costly and technically challenging.

Officials discussed several funding and cost points: the original application included a $150,000 per-site allowance for interconnection work, the CPRG subaward as submitted to Cleveland would bring roughly $15 million in grant funds to the city with additional investment tax credits of about $6–7 million, and program-income rules mean projects will reinvest early revenues into the grant-funded work (the city said the award anticipated no program income distribution for the first five years). County presenters said they can reallocate the roughly 5 megawatts that had been assigned to Harvard and focus on other landfill sites such as Brooklyn and a Harvard Road South concept on the Garfield Heights side with a smaller 2-megawatt installation if engineering and ownership issues can be resolved.

Council members pressed for accountability and clearer documentation of negotiations. Councilwoman Rebecca Moore said Slavic Village “got caught in the middle” and urged the administration to produce records referenced in public letters between the county and city that discuss technical conditions for the subaward. Several members asked the administration to involve the health department and building and housing in follow-up work; Councilman Bishop asked specifically that health officials investigate methane reports in residents’ basements.

The city has signed the subaward terms that will allow the county to move ahead, county officials said; the subaward was submitted to the county council for approval, with county representatives stating that county-legislative approval was expected in early January. No formal vote on the Harvard site was recorded at the hearing; rather, officials described a de facto exclusion of Harvard from the city’s deliverables under current CPP assessments and a county plan to reallocate capacity.

The hearing closed with city officials and Slavic Village Development agreeing to continue engagement. Office of Sustainability staff committed to work with SVD and other departments (building and housing, fire, public works, public health) to address remaining environmental and maintenance issues at the Harvard landfill while the county pursues alternative uses for the grant funds.

What’s next: the county’s subaward is pending county council approval; county and developer representatives said they will pursue alternate sites and a smaller Harvard South concept if engineering and ownership questions can be resolved. The city’s Office of Sustainability and other departments agreed to continue working with Slavic Village Development to pursue remedies for site maintenance, methane monitoring and possible steps to remove the parcel from receivership.