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Sewer upgrades mean jobs, cleaner water
YOUNGSTOWN
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, promoted the Clean Water Affordability Act he plans to introduce this week, saying it would help cities upgrade their sewer systems, improve water quality and keep sewer-user rates affordable.
It’s the same bill the senator promoted in a Mill Creek Park news conference last September as a measure that would help communities such as Youngstown.
“Some 70 communities in Ohio are struggling to afford very extensive, but also vital, renovations to outdated sewer systems,” the senator said during a Wednesday media teleconference in Washington, D.C., referring to communities with combined storm and sanitary-sewer overflows.
“Every time there are heavy rains, these systems are overwhelmed. Untreated waste and stormwater are dumped straight into our rivers, creeks and lakes,” many of which are drinking-water sources, he added.
Brown said the delay in introducing the bill stems from his desire to hear comments on the issue, update and refine the bill’s language and build support among his fellow senators.
The bill would authorize $1.8 billion for grants over five years to help economically troubled municipalities with sewer-system improvements, with the grants covering 75 percent of project costs, supplemented by a 25 percent local share.
“Congress is beginning to recognize that public-works investment has declined since the ’80s, and, if we’re going to set a foundation of better economic growth in this country, this is a big part of doing it,” Brown said.
The grants will allow communities to afford the upgrades without imposing all the improvement costs on sewer-rate payers, Brown said.
For every $1 billion invested in infrastructure improvement projects, more than 20,000 well-paying construction trades jobs can be created, and such investments help attract new businesses, Brown said.
Youngstown’s combined sewer overflows, which discharge a mixture of storm water and untreated sewage after heavy rains, were the primary cause of a massive fish kill in Mill Creek Park’s Lake Newport early last summer, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said.
The park lakes were closed the remainder of last year, but they have reopened this year, with signs posted at boat launches warning boaters that E. coli bacteria levels may be high 24 to 96 hours after it rains.
Under an agreement with the U.S. and Ohio EPAs, Youngstown, which has 101 CSOs, will spend $146 million over the next 17 years to upgrade its sewer system, including curtailment of CSOs that discharge into Mill Creek Park.
Other local communities with one or more CSOs are Newton Falls, Warren, Girard and Lisbon.
The U.S. EPA estimates communities across the nation need a total of $48 billion for overflow system renovations.