By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Trumbull County and Newton Falls have hit a dead end in providing sewage lines to 200 homes in the Scott Street area of Newton Township.

At the Trumbull County commissioners workshop Tuesday, county and township officials discussed the reasons why.

Gary Newbrough, project planning director for the Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer’s Office, said his office came up with a solution that would have made the project affordable for the 222 customers to be served.

But the village of Newton Falls rejected the proposal because it would have allowed Newton Township residents to have their sewage treated in the Newton Falls treatment plant for about half of what Newton Falls residents pay.

A letter from Jack Haney, Newton Falls city manager, says the deal would have made it unfair “for city residents to subsidize in perpetuity other residential customers while shouldering the cost of the overall operation.”

The county proposed it would build the sewer system and bring the Scott Street customers into the county sewage system, charging them rates equivalent to what other county customers pay, including customers whose sewage is treated by municipal treatment plants in places like Warren and Niles.

The village would process the waste at the rate other county customers pay, but Newton Falls charges its customers more because of upgrades to the treatment plant the village made in recent years, Newbrough said.

If Newton Falls agreed to the county’s proposal, it would cost Scott Street homes about $22,756 per household over 20 years, or $1,138 per year.

Without the village’s cooperation, the cost would be an average of $39,168 on average over 20 years, or $1,958 per year, Newbrough said.

When residents were told that cost at a public hearing in October 2014, they said the cost was too high, Newbrough said.

Newton Falls Mayor Lyle Waddell, when asked about the proposal, said the county’s plan is not only unfair to village residents it would be unfair to people in the first phase of the Scott Street project, who paid more than the people in the remaining two phases.

One reason the county has attempted to bring sewers to the Scott Street area is because the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency labeled the neighborhood an “unsewered area of concern.” The county and EPA signed a consent agreement a decade ago that called for sewers to be provided there.

Without sewers, many of the Scott Street residents will have to upgrade their septic systems at a cost of $15,000 to $25,000, county officials said.