Water deal dries up: Boardman, Canfield, Austintown won’t get Aqua Ohio service
Boardman, Canfield, Austintown won’t get Aqua Ohio service
YOUNGSTOWN
The city’s board of control is expected today to sign a contract with a no-compete clause to sell up to 2.2 million gallons of water a day to Aqua Ohio.
Aqua already has signed the deal, and city council authorized the board of control May 18 to approve the contract.
The board has a special meeting at 10 a.m. today to finalize the deal that will expire Dec. 31, 2025.
This contract would end plans by the ABC (Austintown, Boardman and Canfield) Water and Storm Water District to buy bulk water from Aqua rather than from Youngstown.
An attorney representing the district said shortly after details of the pact were disclosed in a May 17 article in The Vindicator that trustees in the three townships were concerned with the no-compete clause and threatened legal action against Aqua, including a temporary restraining order and injunction.
The attorney, Eric Luckage of Albers & Albers law firm in Columbus, contends Aqua repeatedly assured the townships that it would sell water to the district. Al Sauline, Aqua’s local manager, said last month that his company wasn’t interested in expanding.
The contract calls for the city to sell the water with a 10-percent surcharge. Youngstown water customers outside the city — including all of Austintown and portions of Boardman and Canfield — pay a 40-percent surcharge.
The city expects to spend about $350,000 to $500,000 for its portion of the project and receive about $100,000 to $125,000 annually in payments from Aqua, city officials say.
The contract calls for the city to sell 250,000 to 2.2 million gallons a day to Aqua. But Sauline has said the company plans to use Youngstown water as a backup source for its customers in cases of a waterline break or if its customers increase their demand for water.
Also today, the board of control will vote on a deal to allow V&M Star use of a 12-acre parcel on Division Street to dump dirt as part of its $650 million expansion project, said city Finance Director David Bozanich, a board member.
The dirt would be dumped into a large pit on the former Youngstown Sinter Facility in the city’s Ohio Works Business Park, Bozanich said.
The dirt would be used to level the former Sinter property for a potential economic development project, he said.
WCI Steel closed the plant in 2001. Snyder Demolition and Revitalization, a Pittsburgh company, purchased the property and demolished the former 100,000-square-foot facility for scrap metal. Snyder gave the property — 22 acres in all — to the city in 2007 at no cost after removing the scrap.