Warren, Trumbull County resolve sewer-rate dispute

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

A settlement reached Wednesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court will result in a sizable increase in the amount the county will pay for treatment of wastewater from Champion and the western part of Lordstown.

County officials say, however, they won’t know how much more until they decide how widely to spread the increased costs.

The resolution, which officials discussed at a news conference Friday at the Log Cabin on Courthouse Square, pays Warren about $1.5 million more per year to treat the wastewater and increases the rate from about 30 percent of what Warren customers pay to 75 percent. The 10-year agreement is retroactive to January 2018.

Gary Newbrough, deputy county sanitary engineer, said the amount it will raise county sewer rates will depend on whether all county sewer customers see the increase or only customers of the Metropolitan Sewer District, which covers about 60 percent of the county’s customers. It will be phased in over about five years.

Warren Mayor Doug Franklin said there is an incentive in the contract that will encourage the county to eliminate the flow of stormwater into the sanitary sewers that unnecessarily increase the county’s costs. Stormwater enters the system in some older homes, Newbrough said.

The agreement ended a “Hatfield and McCoys” type of feud that simmered for more than a year between Warren and county officials after Warren demanded the county pay 100 percent of the rate Warren residents pay.

Among the negotiators was Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka, who also served as a Warren councilman for many years. Mauro Cantalamessa and Enzo Cantalamessa, county commissioner and Warren safety-service director, respectively, abstained from involvement because they are brothers.

Ed Haller, director of the Warren Water Pollution Control department, said the impetus for increasing the cost to the county was the expiration of the 20-year contract at the end of 2017 and the feeling that the county was paying way too little.

Newbrough said Trumbull County customers pay about $40 per month. Bill Coleman, office manager for the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer’s Office, said customers there pay an average of $38.51 per month.

The back amounts the county owes the city from 2018 and early 2019 will be paid in two installments – half in two months and the other half in one year.

The dispute included a lawsuit Warren filed against the county Nov. 2 in common pleas court. Franklin said the legal costs to the city related to the dispute was about $30,000. Newbrough said the county’s cost was about $10,000.