43
Lake Newport disaster declaration sought
YOUNGSTOWN
Mill Creek MetroParks’ lakes are closed indefinitely, and the chairman of the Mahoning County commissioners wants Lake Newport to be declared a federal and state disaster area.
Such a declaration could trigger funding for lake dredging or for elimination of the city’s combined storm and sanitary sewer overflows, said Anthony Traficanti.
Sewer-overflow discharges in late June caused the massive Lake Newport fish kill and Friday’s closing of park lakes Newport, Cohasset and Glacier to all recreational uses, including fishing and boating.
“The E. coli bacteria levels are extreme" in Lake Newport, which straddles the Youngstown-Boardman line, Traficanti said Thursday. “To me, that’s a disaster area,” he added. “This has to be remediated because there are people who have homes behind Newport Lake.
“What I’m being told is the stench is so bad back there, it could actually become worse as this weather starts to warm up, and, God forbid, if we get another torrential rainstorm, is this going to repeat itself?” the commissioner asked.
“Maybe we do need to bring the Army Corps of Engineers in,” he said.
“That is a beautiful part of our county, and it needs to be attended to,” Traficanti said of Lake Newport.
Traficanti’s comments came as Aaron Young, Mill Creek MetroParks executive director, announced after a Thursday morning closed-door meeting of environmental and public health officials that the park lakes would remain closed to recreational use indefinitely.
Young declined to comment on Traficanti’s call for a disaster-area declaration.
Another closed-door meeting on the sewage issue was Thursday afternoon in the county commissioners office.
Although there was no majority of any public agency board present, the half-hour meeting consisted of Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti; Atty. Lou Schiavoni, park board chairman; Bill Coleman, county sanitary engineering office manager; and Martin Hume, city law director.
Righetti characterized the meeting as a “brainstorming” session concerning a possible joint grant application for efforts to remedy the problem and how the county might help in that process.
Righetti said she agrees with Traficanti’s call for a disaster declaration.
“This is an unseasonable amount of rain that we received this year. ... I think the state and federal government should come in and help us,” she said.
A disaster declaration would have to be made by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the governor’s office.
Traficanti said it would be unacceptable to him for the city’s combined sewer-overflow elimination and sewage system upgrade project to take years to complete.
“I think the timeline should be a heck of a lot shorter,” he said.
The city’s timetable calls for completion of the $146 million project in 2033.
Traficanti said he isn’t sure what the county’s contribution might be to the city’s combined sewer-overflow elimination effort.
“If the county has anything to do to assist in this project, we should be willing to assist in any way that we possibly can” financially, or in support of a joint city-county grant application, Traficanti said.
The county’s sewer system is strictly sanitary, and does not have combined sewer overflows, but sewage from the county’s system flows into the city’s system at eight locations, Coleman said.
Coleman said he could not quantify the extent to which the county’s sewage input contributes to discharge from city combined sewer overflows.
The county pays the city $2.5 million to $3 million a year to treat county sewage in the city’s Poland Avenue plant.
Mayor John A. McNally said the city would be sending county officials a letter concerning the county’s commitment to the city’s sewer system improvement project.
Traficanti said it was “shocking” to him to hear that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency did not test Lake Newport waters for E. coli and total fecal coliform bacteria.
“They’re the ones who should be at the forefront” of environmental matters, he said.
OEPA officials did not respond to a request for comment.
County health board and city wastewater department tests on Lake Newport water conducted last week found excessive E. coli levels.