Mayfield Heights approves agreements to join Cleveland Water suburban main renewal program

Mayfield Heights council on Aug. 4 approved a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign an asset-transfer agreement, a municipal-utility (economic development) agreement and a restated water service agreement with the City of Cleveland that would make the city eligible for Cleveland Water's suburban water-main renewal program.

The move would transfer ownership of Mayfield Heights' distribution mains (16 inches and smaller) to Cleveland Water and let Cleveland assume responsibility for capital replacements on those mains, Cleveland Division of Water Commissioner Alex Margavicious said. "If you execute, you will sign a new agreement called the restated agreement. It is for a minimum of 20 years," Margavicious told the council during a Committee of the Whole presentation.

The program matters to taxpayers and public safety because Mayfield Heights has 49 miles of water main and, according to Cleveland Water's presentation, nearly 22 miles of pipe date from the 1920s. Margavicious said the current market replacement cost is about $2 million per mile, creating a potential $43 million replacement obligation if the city were to fund all of that work on its own.

Cleveland Water described five written elements that come with the restated agreement: the restated water service agreement itself, an economic-development/municipal-utility-district agreement, an asset-transfer agreement, participation in Cleveland's suburban replacement program and a reimbursement agreement. Margavicious said the written restatement preserves most of the earlier agreement's language but adds…