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Youngstown council to vote on raising rates
YOUNGSTOWN
City council is expected to vote Dec. 3 on whether to raise sewer rates to help pay for $146 million in wastewater treatment improvements.
The rates would increase 3.99 percent for four years starting Jan. 1 for a total of 17 percent. That amounts to $2 a month on a $50 sewer bill.
The city has to make the improvements or face possible court action and fines by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
John P. Pierko, an engineer for MS Consultants, gave council an overview of the improvements at its caucus meeting Monday.
He also gave a history of how the city reached this point: Though $146 million sounds expensive, it took a long time to negotiate with the EPA to steer it away from its original belief in 2002 that the city should spend $310 million on projects to control or eliminate its overflow sewers.
Those sewers are normally dry, but in heavy rains, they catch overflow.
For nine years, Pierko said, the city and the EPA negotiated. Finally, he said, the EPA acknowledged in a letter to the city in April 2011 that the city could not afford $310 million worth of projects to improve its system.
The agency asked for a proposal, he said.
Finally, in December 2013, the EPA settled on $146 million in 14 years. But the city said that was too fast a time frame and wanted 24 years. They settled on 20.
Some council members expressed concern about the affordability of the projects for city residents.
The U.S. census lists Youngstown as having the sixth-highest poverty rate among cities in the nation. Among the top nine, its monthly sewer rate of $84.55 per 1,000 cubic feet is the highest.
City law director Martin Hume said, however, that under the federal Clean Water Act, the city could be forced to do $310 million in projects.
“We are trying to expand the time frame so it’s achievable,” he said. “But if they played hard ball, they could force us to do everything.”
Hume said there are other funding possibilities besides a rate increase, but he cannot promise they will come through.
Pierko said the improvements are in three phases, with the first one, a $36 million upgrade of the wastewater treatment plant, beginning next year.
The second project would be to build a high-rate wastewater treatment plant that treats between 80 million gallons and 180 million gallons.
It would operate once the main plant reaches capacity and would cost $62 million.
The third project would be a new $48 million interceptor wastewater interceptor line along Glenwood Avenue near Mill Creek Park.
A line in the park now would be left alone and would still operate.