Trustees discuss sewer time line

Residents of the Lakeshore development are expected to vote on sewers by June.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Bazetta Township trustees hope they have secured reassurances from the Trumbull County Board of Health that will satisfy residents of Lakeshore and West Lake drives that their sewer project remains on course.
Trustees Michael Piros and William Glancy met Wednesday with two county commissioners and Sanitary Engineer Gary Newbrough -- with board of health officials on a conference call -- to discuss what needs to take place in the next six months.
The project now takes in a part of Mosquito Lake State Park and needs an easement through part of the park land, which could take up to nine more months, Newbrough said.
Seeking approval
Meanwhile, the health board has applied additional pressure to residents of the neighborhood on the west side of Mosquito Lake to approve the sewer line.
Dr. James J. Enyeart, health commissioner, said he wrote to the trustees in December after learning that the date for a public hearing had been moved back from February to June.
"There can't be an open timeline for this to be completed," Dr. Enyeart said. Lakeshore residents "have to know that if they don't deal with us in earnest, they'll be spending $15,000" to update their present system.
June is when county officials expect engineering work to be completed so that each homeowner in the area will be notified of his cost and a public hearing can be held.
"At that point, the residents can say yea or nay," Piros said. "They will have to understand that if they say nay, they will have to have a full-blown [septic] system."
Piros said the health department is under scrutiny to get the neighborhood's septic systems "under control, especially since they are close to the lake," which supplies Warren's water. The neighborhood is one of about 20 unsewered areas of concern in the county that the Environmental Protection Agency has sued the county to get fixed; problems have existed for 20 years.
"People I've talked to say sewers are the only way to go," Glancy said of the Lakeshore residents.
Determining costs
In November, Trumbull County commissioners hired ES & amp;C International LLC of Youngstown to handle engineering services that will determine how much the project will cost owners of the 63 homes. Officials have said the estimated $1 million project would extend sewers from a package plant at the end of Sterling Drive, and likely will cost each homeowner about $15,000.
A high percentage of the neighborhood's residents signed a petition indicating they would pay for having a sewer line built. The county requires about 80 percent to proceed with engineering work. That work will cost $246,570 -- $155,070 of which the county would be liable for paying if the project does not proceed.
Newbrough said that engineering should be in draft form by March 1. Getting approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the easement through the park land could take up to nine months, Newbrough said, but health department officials indicated the current time frame will be satisfactory.
runyan@vindy.com