Southington group gives county petitions supporting water line

Staff report

WARREN

Members of the Southington Water District delivered signatures to the Trumbull County commissioners this week indicating support for a waterline from Warren into the townships of Champion, Warren and Southington.

The committee’s four-year chairman, Stanley “Skip” Hanes, said it took a year of visits to the affected property owners to get commitments from a sufficient number of them.

The project would bring water from U.S. Route 422 at the state Route 5 Bypass west along Route 422 in Warren and Champion townships to Leiby- Osborne Road in Southington and then back to Route 422 near the Ohio State Highway Patrol barracks on Warren-Burton Road in Southington.

Rex Fee, executive director of the Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer’s Office, said the project is important to him.

“You have my pledge I’m going to stick around until you have water,” Fee said as Hanes presented the petitions to commissioners Wednesday.

Hanes and others have worked to get waterlines extended into the area because the quality of the water from wells is “hit and miss,” Hanes said. Some wells have high levels of arsenic and sulfur, he said.

The next step will be for the county to conduct a feasibility study and determine the costs.

Getting the waterline built will be a first step toward extending lines farther north into the center of Southington Township and into other townships, which will spur economic development, Hanes added.