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Trumbull official says sections of sewer in Farmdale will need to be ‘replaced in their entirety’
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Randy Smith, Trumbull County’s highway and sanitary engineer, told the county commissioners Wednesday that about 800 feet of the sewers constructed in the Farmdale area will need to be torn out and “replaced in their entirety.”
There are also other sections of new sewers in that same Kinsman Township sewer project that have problems that will require them to be either repaired or replaced, Smith said. A decision on what will need to be done to fix those problems will be made later by the engineering company working on the project, Smith said.
Smith added that he now believes completion of the Kinsman project will be delayed into 2016.
He said the determination that 800 feet of sewers will need to be replaced came as a result of the analysis by consulting engineer MS Consultants of new videos filmed of the project. The sewer lines affected are on Mayburn-Barclay Road and Burnett East Road.
The county hired a company to videotape the inside of the sewer lines built by Marucci and Gaffney Excavating of Youngstown in the Kinsman and state Route 193 in Vienna Township sewer projects, and the company is 25 percent finished with the videos for Kinsman Township, Smith said.
The problem areas show water inside the pipes, indicating that the pipes have sags in them, Smith has said.
The 800 feet of sewer lines that have problems are part of the 5,200 feet of sewer lines that were built in Farmdale. In all, the Kinsman sewer project covers about six miles.
Smith said Marucci and Gaffney will be notified today of the need to replace parts of the Farmdale sewer lines. The county hired a Cleveland law firm in April to work with Marucci and Gaffney to address the problems the county has found with the two sewer projects.
Peter Welin, an attorney for Marucci and Gaffney, did not return a phone call late Wednesday seeking comment on Smith’s remarks.
Meanwhile, Smith said the sanitary engineer’s office was confronted with what Smith says are unfounded allegations last week from Marucci and Gaffney that the county improperly handled soil at its wastewater treatment plant in Kinsman.
Smith said he was notifed by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency that Bill Gaffney Jr. of Marucci and Gaffney had sent the EPA photographs showing “oil bleeding out” of the soil.
But the liquid bleeding out of the soil was just the fluid that comes out of the straw that was there, Smith said, and there was no oil in the soil.
The Vindicator called the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency late Wednesday to verify Smith’s account, but EPA officials did not immediately respond.