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US officials mull dates to study city water and sewer
YOUNGSTOWN
Officials of the U.S. Government Accountability Office are working on tentative arrangements to visit Youngstown on Sept. 24 or 25, or on both of those days, to study the city’s water supply and sewer systems.
GAO will be making the fact-finding visit here as part of a congressionally requested study of how communities with declining populations manage and finance their water supply and sewer infrastructure needs and the extent to which they get federal support for those efforts.
A group from the nonpartisan GAO’s natural resources and environment team will visit Youngstown, Detroit and some other yet-to-be-determined cities as part of the study, said Chuck Young, GAO’s managing director of public affairs.
A series of emails between GAO and Youngstown officials began with an introductory email Aug. 26 from Kaitlan M. Doying, a Washington, D.C.-based GAO analyst, to Mayor John A. McNally that expressed GAO’s potential interest in visiting Youngstown as part of the study.
The mayor responded nine minutes later, expressing the city’s interest in the study and asking Doying to contact city Law Director Martin Hume to set up meetings with city water, wastewater and finance officials.
The mayor told her of the city’s $148 million agreement with the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection agencies to improve its wastewater system and eliminate many combined storm and sanitary sewer overflows.
“Financing these improvements in other ways than just increasing user fees is necessary to make sure these improvements actually take place,” the mayor told Doying.
The Ohio EPA said combined city storm and sanitary sewer overflow discharges after heavy rains in late June were the primary cause of a massive fish kill in Mill Creek MetroParks’ Lake Newport.
The fish kill was followed by Mahoning County District Board of Health findings of elevated E. coli bacteria levels in Lake Newport, which triggered the indefinite closing of park lakes to all recreational activity July 10.
On Thursday, Doying told Hume her agency wants to have one meeting with the city’s water supply, wastewater and engineering staff, a second meeting with the city’s finance staff and a third meeting with its community development and planning staff.
The emails are silent as to whether the study team wants to tour the city’s water supply and wastewater conveyance systems or its wastewater treatment plant.
Besides Doying, others listed as GAO contacts for the study are Alfredo Gomez, director; Susan Iott, assistant director; and Swati Thomas, analyst in charge.
The study was requested by U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Hume said he hopes the GAO visit here will trigger federal grants to help the city complete the sewer improvements it must make between now and 2033 under its agreement with the federal and state EPAs.
The GAO study report is likely to be issued in summer 2016, Young said, declining to comment on details of the GAO visit here.