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GM to get $443,482 back after sewer bill mistake
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County commissioners have approved a $443,482 reimbursement to General Motors for sanitary sewer charges that GM and the county agree were too high over the past four years.
After negotiations between the county sanitary engineer’s office and GM, the parties agreed to reduce the monthly sewer bill for the Lordstown Complex by $30,963 for each of the next 14 months.
Rex Fee, executive director of the sanitary engineer’s office, said the overcharges resulted from inaccurate meter readings used to determine how much wastewater GM sent to the county for treatment.
Fee said the county and GM monitor the quantity of sewage created at the plant, but neither party picked up on the overcharges right away. The meter belongs to the sanitary engineer’s office.
It became apparent there was a problem with the metering last Christmas because the plant was shut down for about a week and yet the meter continued to indicate high levels of sewage being generated, Fee said.
GM also had expressed to the county a belief that the sewer bill was too high, Fee said.
“We had great, amicable discussions with the county over the past couple months, and we came to a workable result,” said Tom Mock, plant spokesman.
The repayment to GM will not cause rates to rise for other county sewer customers, Fee said.
GM is part of the Metropolitan Sewer District, which covers Lordstown and many areas in the southern third of the county, said Jim Brutz, an assistant county prosecutor who provides legal advice to the sanitary engineer’s office.
The sewer district has nearly 20,000 customers and a large enough financial cushion to absorb the cost, Fee said.
In other business, commissioners approved the expenditure of $9,823 in county engineer’s funds to help pay one third of the cost of a study by Silverlode Consulting Corp. of Cleveland.
The Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and conducts economic development activities, will pay the other two-thirds. The total is $29,500.
Silverlode will study the feasibility of developing a railroad freight facility at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and study area pipeline construction. The study might encourage the use of railroads for freight hauling and spur use of pipelines. Both ideas would reduce wear and tear on county roads.
The emerging gas and oil industry in the Mahoning Valley is one reason for exploring additional options for freight moving, port authority officials said earlier this month when they approved funding for the study.