Report: Youngstown wastewater delay invites $700K fine
YOUNGSTOWN — The City of Youngstown could face an approximate $700,000 federal penalty for apparently being a year behind on just one part of its plan for mandated wastewater system improvements, records show.
City officials also said they're "stalled" on the plan's second phase — a project to more than double the system's peak capacity with a new facility — for lack of financing.
City officials said they intend to seek some leniency on the plan's deadlines at an upcoming meeting with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
When did this begin?
Since 2002, the city has been working under a federal consent decree from the U.S. EPA, in which it's ordered to make a total $160 million in improvements to its wastewater treatment system and eliminate sewer overflows into the Mahoning River and Mill Creek Park caused by heavy rainstorms.
Combined sewer systems like Youngstown's collect not only wastewater but also stormwater runoff for treatment, and are designed to overflow in periods of heavy rain or snowfall and discharge into nearby water bodies, according to the EPA.
That makes them a "major water pollution concern" for the more than 700 U.S. cities that use them. Untreated sewage can also contain harmful bacteria.
According to the EPA, 88 communities in Ohio had CSOs in 2017, including Girard, Lisbon, Newton Falls and Youngstown. Another 12 had separated their sewer systems before the federal deadline, including the city of Niles.
During a wetter-than-average 2020, Youngstown's about 100 combined sewer overflows, or CSOs, discharged a total nearly 1.3 billion gallons of sewage, according to a March report. Much of that made its way into the Mahoning River or Mill Creek.
Under the city's federal consent decree, improvements to the system and new construction are planned out through 2033 in a long-term control plan.
What happened to the plan?
Chuck Shasho, the city's deputy director of public works, told Mahoning Matters the city's completed construction for the plan's first phase.
However, a timeline of the city's compliance thus far, filed April 14 with the U.S. EPA by Paul Joseph, the system's assistant superintendent, indicates the deadline to "finalize" wastewater treatment plant improvements was on March 27, 2020, and that it remains a "future deadline."
Shasho in an interview last week said the COVID-19 pandemic caused construction delays, and cited other "construction issues." Officials expect to call on a "force majeure" clause in the federal order that offers protection from forces outside their control.
According to the city's most recent annual report on combined sewer overflows, certain plant improvements were still being built at the time of the report's publication in March, and were expected to be completed this year. Another improvement, an ultraviolet-light disinfection process, came online in 2019, according to the March report.
The first phase's plant improvements cost about $74 million and are expected to extend the system's lifespan by another about 50 years, officials said.
Whether the EPA will levy a fine will likely depend on whether regulators feel the city's achieved "significant completion" of the project markers thus far, Shasho said.
The plant improvements deadline, which is the last step for that portion of the long-term plan, is considered a "milestone" — a way to determine the city's compliance with the consent decree remains on track. Under the consent decree, missed milestones accrue monetary penalties, which ramp up from a few-hundred dollars a day to $2,000 per day, and become due after the U.S. EPA files a written demand for them. So far, the agency hasn't been in contact about the plan, officials said.
Following that math, as of Monday, April 26, 2021, the penalty has ballooned to an estimated $691,000.
City Finance Director Kyle Miasek on Monday confirmed that's the potential amount of the penalty, which would be paid out of the city's wastewater fund.
What can be done now?
Miasek said it's imperative the matter be brought before City Council as soon as possible. The next regular council meeting is set for May 19, according to the council's calendar.
In anticipation of an upcoming meeting with the EPA, city officials have been working with attorneys from Cleveland on how best to approach the next phase of the long-term plan, city Law Director Jeff Limbian told Mahoning Matters earlier this month.
Limbian said officials will seek some "indulgence" from state and federal regulators and are preparing a document to explain how they fell behind on deadlines — though he didn't know when that might be finished.
Limbian did not respond to requests for a later follow-up interview.
Shasho said Mayor Jamael Tito Brown has set May cabinet meetings on the issue. "Either way, our goal is to initiate the design phase" for the next leg of the long-term plan, Shasho said.
Other apparent delays
Shasho said the plant improvements deadline was the only major deadline in the long-term plan the city hasn't hit.
The city's April 14 compliance update also indicates two other project milestones from 2020 haven't been reached and other non-milestone deadlines to begin various objectives — some dating as far back as 2018 — haven't been started.
Most of the still-outstanding tasks relate to plans for a sewer interceptor to divert sewage away from Mill Creek. One CSO discharge into Lake Newport in summer 2015 — more than 100,000 gallons of sewage — caused a massive fish kill, according to The Vindicator.
Work on the Mill Creek interceptor — the third phase of the long-term plan — was supposed to begin in December 2018 and clear two design milestones by July 2020 and April 15, 2021. But the timeline filed April 14 indicates a preliminary design report for the system is still a "future deadline."
Shasho said he expects officials will likely start design work "this year into next year." Construction on the interceptor system is expected to begin in spring 2024, according to the long-term plan.
Shasho also said he expects the city will miss a February 2022 target to begin construction on a wet weather facility, which will eliminate the city's largest CSO at the end of Federal Street, near Weatherbee Coat Co., where Crab Creek enters the Mahoning River.
The facility will be designed to accommodate an additional 100 million gallons per day beyond the city system's 80 million-gallon peak capacity, and disinfect it before it reaches the Mahoning River, according to the long-term plan.
The facility's preliminary design was completed by deadline in 2018. It's expected to be completed in summer 2024, according to the long-term plan.
It's expected to cost $90 million — a price inflated by soaring construction costs related to the pandemic, Shasho said.
Shasho did not respond to an email with follow-up questions sent Monday.
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COMING SOON: Mahoning Matters reviews the historic impact the city's sewer system has had on its waterways, and how officials can finance such large-scale cleanups as the city's scale shrinks.
This story was originally published April 27, 2021 at 3:52 AM with the headline "Report: Youngstown wastewater delay invites $700K fine."