SEWER SYSTEM REPORT Officials: Incomplete paperwork led to $24,000 fine

The original fine was $49,000, but it was cut by more than half.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- City officials say incomplete paperwork resulted in the state Department of Environmental Protection's levying a $24,000 fine against the city.
Sharon learned in September that it was facing a fine for failing to file a full quarterly report with the state on activity related to the municipal sanitary sewer system, including any overflows into the Shenango River and any new sewer tap-ins.
Sharon is under a consent order with the DEP to eliminate sewage overflows, and city officials revealed the fine at a city council work session Wednesday.
The city was sending its reports to the DEP but without including similar information from the Upper Shenango Valley Water Pollution Control Authority, which sends sewage from Sharpsville and parts of South Pymatuning Township and Hermitage to the Sharon treatment plant.
Mayor David O. Ryan said the DEP determined that Sharon's report was incomplete without the authority's data and, therefore, the city was being fined $200 a day until the missing information was supplied.
The fine was originally set at $49,000 going back to the date the consent order was signed, but the state agency reduced it to $24,000, going back only to September when it first notified the city that the report was incomplete.
Michael Gasparich, city finance director, said the authority's information was secured and sent to the state in late March.
Who's responsible?
He said the city has paid the $24,000 fine but may go after the authority to recover that money.
Fred Hoffman, city council president, said the DEP should go after the authority because the delay in completing the report was the authority's fault.
Ryan said the DEP considers Sharon and the authority to be a single entity in regards to sanitary sewer issues related to the city's treatment plant.
Contacted after the meeting, Joseph Augustine, authority chairman, admitted the authority was in violation, even though it had no activity to report.
Neither Sharon nor the DEP, however, ever gave the authority any form to fill out or told the authority what engineering firm was doing Sharon's report, he said.
The DEP said the fine belongs to both the authority and Sharon, and the authority will pay its share, Augustine said, adding that just how much that is has yet to be determined.
Councilman Bob Lucas was critical of the fine, noting that both the city and the DEP work for the citizens of Pennsylvania.
"We're fining our own citizens," he said, adding that the state's punitive action "borders on the ridiculous."