Wednesday, July 29, 2015
and David Skolnick
YOUNGSTOWN
The city law department is expected to send a letter today to the Mahoning and Trumbull county commissioners reminding them of their counties’ generally agreed-upon financial commitments toward city sewer improvements.
A partially written draft, which city Law Director Martin Hume released in error in response to a Vindicator public-records request, informed the commissioners that the city has a $147 million agreement with the Ohio and U.S. Environmental Protection agencies to upgrade the city wastewater treatment plant and to eliminate combined storm and sanitary sewer overflows that discharge into Mill Creek after heavy rains by the end of 2033.
Hume said Tuesday he expects to finalize the letter and send it today to officials with the two counties.
The agreement, approved in December 2014, is designed to achieve “better control of waste and to comply with the federal Clean Water Act,” the letter says.
The city’s letter tells the county commissioners a 1988 agreement generally calls for the city to pay 73.9 percent of its sewer improvement costs, with Mahoning County paying 21.7 percent and Trumbull 4.4 percent.
If Mahoning County were to pay 21.7 percent, the county’s share of the project would be almost $32 million.
Mahoning County’s sewage flows into the city’s system at eight locations, and the county pays the city between $2.5 million and $3 million annually to treat county sewage in the city’s Poland Avenue plant, said Bill Coleman, county sanitary engineering office manager.
For Trumbull County, the 4.4 percent is $6.5 million.
Trumbull County has a portion of Liberty Township’s sewage flow into the city’s wastewater plant, said Scott D. Verner, that county’s assistant sanitary engineer.
Liberty’s sewage flows into the city at three locations, and the county pays about $700,000 annually to treat it, said Thomas Mirante, the city’s wastewater superintendent.
“We signed an agreement with the city, and we are responsible to pay our percentage of flow for improvement projects,” Verner said. “We have a period of time to pay it. They don’t look for us to give all of it to them now.”
Hume said, “It’s on a reimbursement basis over a period of [18] years. They’re not paying anything in advance.”
The city’s draft letter says the city’s “longstanding sewer charge agreement” with the counties states that Mahoning and Trumbull “shall reimburse the city for capital improvements made to the city’s wastewater treatment plant and ancillary systems” based on the formula of usage.
Also, Anthony Traficanti, chairman of the Mahoning County commissioners, said his goal is to get federal financial assistance for the city sewer system upgrades to reduce the financial burden on users of the system.
“My whole point in this matter was to bring in federal dollars,” Traficanti said. “Those grant monies are out there.”
He said he is working with the office staff of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Cleveland, who personally returned his telephone call on this matter within one hour, but has not had the same level of response from other legislators, whose offices he has contacted, or from the governor’s office.
Mill Creek MetroParks lakes along the creek have been closed indefinitely to fishing and boating since July 10 due to high E. coli sewage bacteria levels measured by the Mahoning County District Board of Health.
The board of health took the measurements after a massive Lake Newport fish kill in the wake of a heavy rain in late June.
OEPA attributed the fish kill primarily to city combined sewer overflow discharges.
Meanwhile, a Columbus lawyer who has 40 years of environmental law experience, said any lawsuit by citizens to force a faster city sewer system improvement timetable would be “a long shot” with a slim chance of success because of the city’s agreement with the Ohio and U.S. EPAs.
“That’s sort of on the long end of compliance schedules that EPA normally accepts,” observed Atty. Christopher Schraff, referring to the 2033 deadline.
Schraff said he surmised the EPAs allowed the long compliance schedule because of the area’s financial distress.
Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally has said the city plans to adhere to that timetable to keep the sewer improvements affordable to sewer users, who likely could sustain that schedule with continued 4 percent annual sewer rate increases.
He said last week the city has contacted numerous state and federal agencies for funding to move up the start date, and at best there is some no-interest state money available, but not enough to impact the project.
Schraff said he believes it would be difficult to force city and county governments to form a joint sewer district to leverage more money for sewer improvements if those governments are not so inclined.
McNally said two weeks ago that there has been no outcry for a joint sewer district here.
Schraff noted that the Cleveland-area joint sewer district, which consists of 61 communities across three counties and is spending $3 billion on improvements to remove combined sewer overflows and protect the Lake Erie water supply, arose out of sewer rate litigation between Cleveland and its suburbs.
In that case, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge George McMonagal ordered formation of the joint sewer district, known as the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, in 1972.
“You need a judge with vision, foresight and common sense, who can drag all of the parties into a room and get them to agree,” Schraff said of such cases.
Regional sewer districts normally are formed through a petition filed with a court, typically by agencies wanting to form such a district, he said.