MAHONING VALLEY Leaders will hear a funding pitch for dredging river

About $35 million would have to come from state and local sources.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Federal officials will meet with local government representatives in the coming months to try and raise some of the estimated $100 million needed to clean the Mahoning River.
"We're going to be going out and marketing intensely," said Kim Mascarella, director of environmental planning for the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.
About $35 million for the project would have to come from local or state sources; the federal government is expected to pay the remaining $65 million.
Mascarella noted that Carmen Rozzi, project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has met with the Trumbull and Mahoning county commissioners to discuss funding. She said commissioners have yet to respond to a request for money.
Rozzi also will try and meet with Warren Mayor-elect Michael J. O'Brien in coming weeks to talk about funding. The project is slated to start in Warren, Mascarella said.
The corps is conducting a $3 million study to determine the feasibility of dredging 33 miles of the river between Leavittsburg in Trumbull County and the Pennsylvania line. Half the money for the study came from local and state sources.
Rozzi has estimated that a clean Mahoning River could provide $29 million in economic benefits to Mahoning Valley communities each year.
Meeting
Local, state and federal officials discussed the dredging project Wednesday at a meeting of the project steering committee in Boardman. A subcommittee is working on getting funding.
The subcommittee is looking into using state Environmental Protection Agency loans and grants as funding sources, Mascarella said. She added that the subcommittee may explore the possibility of getting money from a $4.3 million state fund designated to pay for environmental cleanup at the former CSC plant in Warren.
In addition, the subcommittee may try and obtain funds from a community outside the Valley through a state EPA program, Mascarella said. The city of Massillon helped pay for the Mahoning River dredging feasibility study with money it received from the state EPA for stream restoration projects.
Mascarella has noted that while $35 million is a significant amount of money, the state often spends much more on road and bridge projects. She cited the proposed $68 million project to replace the twin Interstate 80 bridges over the Meander Reservoir as an example.
Officials have expressed hope that the dredging project cost could be less than $100 million if they can use microbes, enzymes and nutrients for some of the cleanup. Mascarella said preliminary results of a recent study show that microbes, enzymes and nutrients reduced the amount of petroleum hydrocarbons in sediment near Girard from 20,000 parts per million to 400 parts per million.
High levels of petroleum hydrocarbons serve as an indication of contamination and can burn human skin, Rozzi said.
Petroleum hydrocarbons
The steering committee has determined that the river will be considered clean when the level of petroleum hydrocarbons in sediment east of the North River Road dam in Warren is equal to or less than the level in sediment west of the dam near Leavittsburg.
The river near Leavittsburg is considered healthy, and a report shows that sediment in that section of river contains less than 400 parts per million petroleum hydrocarbons.
Sediment in the river near Campbell and Poland, however, contains about 35,000 parts per million petroleum hydrocarbons, the report shows.
Officials have said the contamination is a result of decades of steel production and industry along the river.
Consultants are expected to determine in January how much sediment needs to be removed from the river and its banks for it to be considered clean. Rozzi has estimated that about 750,000 cubic yards of sediment will have to be removed.
The $3 million feasibility study is expected to be complete next fall. Dredging would take 12 to 15 years.
hill@vindy.com