YOUNGSTOWN — With city officials close to finalizing negotiations with the federal government on a high-priced wastewater improvement dispute, the board of control approved a nearly $3 million contract for design work on the project at the center of it.

The board voted 3-0 Wednesday to hire MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown for $2,964,094 for preliminary design work to analyze and develop control measures for a combined sewer overflow at the confluence of Crab Creek and the Mahoning River near downtown.

That work is part of a plan to build a wet weather facility — a physical building that would be located near the city’s wastewater treatment plant. The facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

City council on May 15 authorized the board of control to spend up to $3 million for the pre-design work. But the contract wasn’t approved by the board until Wednesday — more than 10 months later.

The design work on the wet weather facility will take a couple of years, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

“This is the preliminary portion,” he said. “We’ll have multiple design phases for this project.”

The city filed a March 15, 2024, motion to modify a 2014 consent decree in federal court with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As part of that 2014 decree, the city agreed to build a 100-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility.

The city insists the facility mandated by the federal government is too large and expensive.

The project’s initial estimate was $62 million, but is now more than $240 million, according to a Nov. 12 amended motion to modify the consent decree filing from attorney Terrence S. Finn of the Roetzel & Andress law firm in Akron, which represents the city.

The city asked Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Ohio in that motion to permit the consent decree to be amended for the construction of a wet weather facility that could treat 80 million gallons of wastewater per day. The city hasn’t determined the cost of a smaller facility.

The federal government had previously rejected a reduction in the scope of the work.

But the two sides — as well as the state of Ohio — filed a joint motion on Nov. 25 for a 90-day extension to modify the decree stating they “believe that they have reached an agreement in principle.” Boyko granted the motion a day later.

The two sides — and Ohio — then filed another motion for a 60-day extension on Feb. 25 “to finalize the resolution of the consent decree modification motion.” The judge granted that extension a day later.

The two sides have until April 28 to reach a settlement.

The Department of Justice, which is representing the federal government in this case, on Nov. 12 repeated its demand for half of a $1,479,000 penalty from Youngstown to be paid to the federal EPA because the city “defaulted” on following through with federally mandated wastewater improvements. The penalty was first brought up in a Sept. 29, 2023, letter.

The city has refused to pay. The other half — $739,500 — could be sought by the Ohio EPA, which has declined to seek the penalty and has largely sided with Youngstown during the court proceedings.

Federal officials point out that work to the wet weather facility was to start Feb. 7, 2022, and final design work was to be done by this past July 29. The work hasn’t begun, except the city agreeing in May to spend $3 million on pre-design work.

A schedule attached with Finn’s Nov. 12 court filing shows the wet weather facility would be finished by Sept. 7, 2030.

Finn also wrote that the Ohio EPA approves of the city’s proposal to substitute the 100-million-gallon facility with an 80-million-gallon one but “wants Youngstown to obtain additional flow data to further validate the model. Youngstown has agreed to do so.”

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.

The schedule attached to Finn’s Nov. 12 filing has all of the work done by Oct. 1, 2035.

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 11 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.

The city approved $4.8 million on March 15, 2024, for design work for what was supposed to be 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 April 5, 2024.

The city missed those deadlines, but plans a compressed schedule and finish the work 15 months earlier than the initial timeline. The city’s schedule has that work finished by Oct. 16, 2032.

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