Firestone Park's Mirror Lake drained for repairs
KATIE WHITE
Mirror Lake at Columbiana's Firestone Park has been drained temporarily. (Salem News photo by Katie White)
COLUMBIANA — Fish taken from Mirror Lake during the draining process were relocated to other lakes nearby, and the trees removed will be replaced by new trees.
Park board president Dr. Ron Detwiler, who gave an update to city officials last week, said people expressed some concerns about the fish and the trees after seeing them removed.
He estimated that park staff removed between 300 to 400 fish from Mirror Lake and relocated them to lakes within the walking trail. As for the trees, he said the ones that were removed were old Norway pines that were planted there in the 1930s and many of them were dying.
"When we are finished there will be many more trees in there than what came out," he added.
The lake was drained as part of the improvement project that was largely funded through a private $500,000 donation from Columbiana Restoration and Beautification chairwoman Pat Tingle.
The lake will feature a memorial to her late son, David A. Tingle, who passed away last year.
Detwiler said work on the memorial would begin this week or next week. He also the retaining walls are 90 percent completed and that excavation work will begin in early December. He said the project was delayed by the unusually rainy weather.
"I have been extremely pleased with how things have gone so far … It was our goal through this to get everyone to work together and that has come about. It is going to be a phenomenal facility when it is done," Detwiler said.
He and Tingle also presented council with a change to the Mirror Lake plans, and that is the addition of two waterfalls.
The waterfalls are an additional $60,000 to the project, but the park board approved the request since the project is under budget, according to minutes of the October park board meeting.
The waterfalls will be located adjacent to pavilion no. 4.
Tingle also said during the council meeting that she is looking into hiring a company out of Pittsburgh to continue with plantings and landscaping throughout the park after Keith Kaiser's contract is up next year.
The landscaping project would be separate from the park project and funded by Tingle. She said she would like the landscaping to be in honor of her late husband, Bradford Tingle, who passed away in 2014.
She also said she wanted the landscaping to commemorate Harvey S. Firestone, who was responsible for donating the land for the park to the city in 1932.
"The unique concept or Firestone Park is Firestone. We want to find ways to inject Firestone and what he did for the community, in little ways, throughout the park," she said.
kwhite@mojonews.com
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