Panel changes one sewer project

Commissioners approved matching funding for the TAG Law Enforcement Task Force.
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners approved terms Thursday with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency regarding construction of 10 sewer projects -- with one modification.
Jim Brutz, assistant county prosecutor, said he talked to the EPA regarding the Kinsman Township part of the agreement after receiving some feedback from Commissioner Paul Heltzel.
Heltzel questioned why the Kinsman sewer was listed as being among the first projects to be completed -- by 2010.
Brutz said the EPA agreed that Kinsman was a project in two phases.
The first phase, involving construction of a "package" treatment plant to serve a couple of industrial properties near the former Kraft Foods plant on Burnett East Road, could be completed by the end of 2010.
The deadline would be the end of 2015 for the second phase, which would provide sewers to the residential areas in the Kinsman Center and Farmdale areas, Brutz said.
The agreement also lists projects the county promises to complete as late as the end of 2020 and settles a lawsuit the EPA filed against the county in 2002 over unsanitary conditions caused by failing septic systems.
Other action
In other business, commissioners also:
Approved the county's contribution of 9,000 as matching money to fund the TAG Law Enforcement Force, a drug and major crimes investigative unit operating in Trumbull, Ashtabula and Geauga counties. The match is for the task force's 108,000 Byrne Memorial Grant through the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services. The task force is staffed with two deputies from each county.
Approved the county Children Services Board's purchase of a house at 2362 Reeves Road N.E., Howland, for 83,900. The property is in front of the CSB facilities, and the board owns the property surrounding it. It will be used as training offices or torn down to make room for possible relocation of the facility's entrance road.