Steve Kemme
Enquirer staff writer

MARIEMONT - The village has reached a compromise in a tree-removal dispute that has delayed a $7 million sewer project along Wooster Pike.

Mariemont, which has always valued the aesthetic appeal of its abundance of towering trees, had balked when the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati proposed cutting down 18 to 20 trees along Wooster Pike to install a sewer line.

In response to the village's outcry, the sewer district revised its plan so that only six to nine lace bark elm trees will have to be removed.

Most of those trees are in the Wooster Pike median near Oak Street. The tree removal won't noticeably harm the leafy canopy over Wooster, Mayor Dan Policastro said.

"It won't look like a bad haircut day," he said, laughing.

Jane McDonald,a village resident and a former trustee of the Mariemont Preservation Foundation, said she's satisfied with the new plan.

"It's disheartening to see any trees removed," she said. "But we still have the remaining canopy of giant sycamores there."

Work on the federally mandated sewer project was supposed to begin in June. But the delay caused by the tree controversy will push the starting date back to late this year or early next year, said Bob Campbell, deputy director of the sewer district. A federal order requires the project to be completed by July 31, 2006. The sewer district will pay for the project.

The 5,800-foot-long sewer line that will run along Wooster from Fairfax to Mariemont will replace old sewer lines in Mariemont's Dogwood Park. The sewer lines were leaking into Whiskey Creek, which runs through the park.

Mariemont officials wrangled with the sewer district for four years over the design and location of the sewer lines. The sewer district originally wanted to install them in Dogwood Park.

But Mariemont didn't want the park torn up and resisted the sewer district's proposal for above-ground sewer lines. Finally, the district agreed to run the new lines along Wooster Pike and to fill the old sewer pipes in Dogwood Park with sand.

The village will replace the trees that are removed. The replacement lace bark elm trees will be 12 feet tall and 21/2 inches in girth. That's considerably smaller than the trees they'll replace, which are 20 to 25 feet high and 8 inches in girth.

"It's a fast-growing tree, and very hardy," said Dennis Malone, village building commissioner. "But it will take a while for them to fill out."

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E-mail skemme@enquirer.com