Officials to announce elimination of Trumbull sewer decree today

Staff report

WARREN

County and state officials will announce today that Trumbull County septic and sewer rules, which many have criticized as overly strict, will be eliminated in favor of the rules used elsewhere in Ohio.

The 2007 consent decree between Trumbull County and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency that established the rules is coming to an end, state Rep. Sean O’Brien of Bazetta, D-63rd, said Thursday.

“It is a very good day for the [more than] 20,000 septic-system owners in my district,” O’Brien said. The announcement will be made at the courthouse gazebo.

“I’m very happy to be able to announce the end of these costly and cumbersome regulations that were placed upon my constituents in Trumbull,” O’Brien said in a news release. “But I am equally pleased with the great strides taken by officials at the Trumbull County Combined Health District to address what was once a big public health issue in this area.”

The consent decree was a milestone in the effort by the OEPA to eliminate unsewered areas of concern in the county that were allowing raw sewage to travel into lakes, rivers and other public waters.

One of the areas was the Lakeshore area on the west side of Mosquito Lake, where poorly functioning septic systems were contaminating the lake. Lakeshore’s new sewers were functional starting in April 2009.

The consent decree was a promise by commissioners to put 10 areas at the top of their priority list for sewers and set deadlines by which the sewers needed to be in place. It also put the county in a better position to receive grants and put limits on the types of septic systems that could be used in the county.

The county board of health started changing its septic rules in 2003 at the urging of the EPA.