Mahoning River Consortium president quits over dredging

The former president says the new plan wouldn’t properly clean the river.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — An 11-year member and three-year president of the Mahoning River Consortium has quit the consortium, saying she no longer has faith that a 31-mile-long river dredging project in the Mahoning Valley is in the area’s best interests.

“I can’t ask the local community to stand behind the project as is. It is absolutely not acceptable,” said Trish Nuskievicz, who is also environmental coordinator and flood plain administrator for the Trumbull County Planning Commission, a position she will keep.

Nuskievicz sent the consortium a letter July 10 to announce her decision to leave.

In it, she said, “We all know the importance of a clean Mahoning River, but this project has just become very expensive with less services than originally discussed and in the end, we will not have a clean river.”

Nuskievicz said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided last December that its plan for dredging the part of the river from the former Copperweld Steel site in Champion to the Pennsylvania line would have to be changed.

The project would no longer include removal of dams or sediment from the river bank. Also, the Army Corps would have power to inspect the river banks in the 50 years after the project is complete, charge the communities along the river for the inspection, and charge the communities for any repairs needed.

Likely problems

With the Corps’ plans to leave contaminated sediment on the riverbanks and place other sediment in two lagoons near the Copperweld site, it seems likely that the sediment will lead to recontamination of the river, Nuskievicz said.

She said the actions of the Army Corps have left her unwilling to trust that the agency will treat the local communities fairly in the period after the dredging is complete. Part of the reason is that the dredging project, which was initiated in 1999, is years behind schedule. The cost has also risen from around $96 million in early 2006 to $150 million in late 2006, she said.

The local match for the cost of the dredging would be 35 percent, Nuskievicz said. Grant money is expected to cover most of that.

Nuskievicz said the Army Corps would have control over the entire dredging project but would incur none of the liability for lawsuits arising from the project.

runyan@vindy.com