YOUNGSTOWN — Discussions between Youngstown and U.S. government officials failed to resolve a dispute about a project, with a cost as high as $240 million and part of a federal wastewater improvement agreement the city is trying to change.

The two sides, who were already in federal court over the issue, asked a judge to settle the matter.

In a joint status report, the federal government and the city wrote that the two sides met July 30 and Aug. 7 after the former presented the city with a July 15 letter including a list of required materials needed from Youngstown to evaluate its updated proposal. The city responded July 24.

After the two subsequent meetings, “the parties have not been able to resolve their dispute and, therefore, request a conference with the court. In the meantime, Youngstown is continuing with its analysis so it can propose a specific … alternative no later than Oct. 1,” according to the joint status report, filed Aug. 14, with Christopher A. Boyko, a senior federal judge, and Magistrate Jennifer Dowdell Armstrong.

The report states the “areas of disagreement” are “regarding the applicable performance standards for the proposed alternative control measure to the 100 million gallon a day wet weather facility.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the city to build a wet weather facility — a physical building that would be located near the wastewater treatment plant. The facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

The city contends the wet weather facility mandated by the federal government is too costly and there are less-expensive alternatives.

The city is urging Boyko to reduce the scope of the work. The city reopened the 2014 consent agreement case on March 15 after failing to convince the federal government that the improvement work needed changes.

The court asked the two sides to discuss the issue, but those talks didn’t resolve the matter.

The federal government insists the alternative to the wet weather facility “must achieve environmental benefits that are equal to or better than the WWF,” according to the July 15 letter from Pedro Segura, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Section.

The city’s position is the federal government’s “proposed performance standards are not objective and are inconsistent with Youngstown’s long term control plan and CSO (combined sewer overflows) policy,” according to the July 24 letter from Terrence S. Finn of the Roetzel & Andress law firm in Akron, which is representing the city.

The city has offered to build a storage bin, which would be smaller and less expensive than a wet weather facility, to hold flow during a storm event and then release it back into the system as one option with another being a less expensive facility at the wastewater treatment plant to provide what it says is the same level of control.

The federal plan “is significantly oversized for its intended purpose of controlling the overflows” and “that the WWF is no longer a cost-effective control measure,” Finn wrote.

The state of Ohio, which is an interested party in this issue, largely sides with the city, stating Youngstown plans to finish an analysis of its alternatives by Oct. 1 and should be given that time.

“Ohio remains concerned that Youngstown’s expenditure of limited public dollars results in the construction of a cost-effective remedy,” wrote Mark J. Navarre, an assistant Ohio attorney general in its environmental enforcement section.

City council voted in May to hire a consultant for $3 million for preliminary design work on the wet weather facility, specifically to analyze and develop control measures for a combined sewer overflow at the confluence of Crab Creek and the Mahoning River near downtown.

The city says the cost of the wet weather facility project increased from $62 million in 2002 to between $232.6 million and $240 million.

The city administration plans Wednesday to ask city council to approve a 5% annual wastewater rate increase for four years to pay for the long term control plan, specifically design work and for debt service related to the projects.

The federal EPA had originally ordered the city in 2002 to do $310 million worth of work, but it was negotiated down to $160 million in 2014 with the expectation it would be finished in 20 years.

The city has tried to get that price down further, but federal authorities have refused those requests, resulting in the reopened court case.

Also, the city insists in court filings and interviews that if Youngstown complied with the mandates now the cost would be about $380 million to $400 million — well over twice what it agreed to do 10 years ago.

The first phase was upgrades to the city’s wastewater treatment plant that have been completed.

The initial construction estimate was $37.3 million, but the city said it cost $70 million.

That work helped reduce the sewer overflows that would be part of the wet weather facility project, the city’s court filing states.

The wet weather facility was supposed to be phase two of the work and was required to start Feb. 7, 2022. The work hasn’t begun, except the city agreeing in May to spend $3 million on pre-design work.

The city approved $4.8 million on March 15 for design work on the third phase. That phase is an interceptor sewer project to keep wastewater from 13 lines from flowing into Mill Creek Park’s Lake Glacier and Lake Cohasset.

Design work was supposed to start July 11, 2020, and construction was to begin this April 5.

The city missed those deadlines, but plans a compressed schedule and finish the work 15 months earlier than the initial timeline.

That phase was estimated to cost $47.7 million and will now cost $72.5 million to $87.2 million, according to city estimates.

Because of the delays, the federal government last year assessed a $1,479,000 penalty on the city, demanding that half — $739,500 — be paid to the federal EPA and allowing the Ohio EPA to demand the other half. The Ohio EPA has declined to seek that penalty.