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Mahoning County OKs 3 years of 5% water-rate hikes for Aqua customers
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County commissioners approved new water rates for the county’s Aqua Ohio customers over the next three years, with increases of about 5 percent each Jan. 1.
The average household served by Aqua in Mahoning County pays about $34 a month for water, said Al Sauline, Aqua Ohio’s Struthers-area manager. Aqua serves about 18,500 Mahoning County water customers.
The Aqua service territory includes Struthers and Lowellville; Poland, Beaver and Springfield townships, and parts of Boardman, Canfield and Coitsville townships.
The increases already have been approved by the township trustees and city and village councils in the parts of the county Aqua serves, except for the Poland Township trustees, who will vote on them early next month.
The three-year agreement was negotiated by the county and the local jurisdictions in the Aqua service area.
“We have a commitment from Aqua to do several million dollars worth of improvements to their system throughout a number of the communities,” J. Robert Lyden, county sanitary engineer, told the commissioners Thursday.
The $5 million in improvements over the next three years includes $1 million worth of water-supply-line replacements, plus additional money for new water meters and fire hydrants, McKelvey Lake dam maintenance in Youngstown and treatment-plant improvements in Poland, Sauline said.
Aqua is now installing a new 12-inch water-supply line along Youngstown-Poland Road in Poland, Lyden noted.
The commissioners’ resolution covers the period beginning Sunday and ending Dec. 31, 2014. The increases will be 5.1 percent Sunday and 4.95 percent each Jan. 1, 2013 and 2014.
The rate increases will cover increased costs for water-treatment chemicals, electricity and system upgrades, Lyden said.
Aqua’s rates went up 3.95 percent at the beginning of 2009, 2010 and 2011.
The commissioners also authorized a new sanitary-sewer installation to be built along Lipkey Road in Jackson Township to be connected to the nearby Lordstown sewer system, which flows to the Warren sewage-treatment plant.
The new sewer, to be installed about a year from now, would serve a 50-bed, assisted-living facility proposed by the Antonine Sisters and about a half-dozen private homes in the township, Lyden said.
other business
Dominic Corso, president of Local 443 of American Postal Workers Union, urged the commissioners and the public to contact postal officials and their U.S. representatives and senators before Jan. 12 to urge retention of the downtown Youngstown mail-processing center.
That center is threatened by proposed nationwide postal cutbacks brought on by declining mail volume and the U.S. Postal Service’s financial woes.
Corso said the Youngstown facility is centrally located, has a biohazard detection system, is capable of handling additional mail and has access to an excellent highway network that is not plagued with traffic congestion.
In their 50th and final meeting of 2011, the commissioners recognized Janice Mottram, jury bailiff of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who is retiring today after nearly 32 years of service to the county.