YOUNGSTOWN — A federal judge ordered Youngstown to pay a $739,500 penalty to the United States for missing deadlines on a major wastewater improvement project.

Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Ohio, who is overseeing the case, ruled Tuesday in favor of the federal government’s request to require the city to pay the penalty for violating the consent decree it signed in 2014. The city missed milestone dates for the completion of an upgrade to its wastewater treatment plant and the submission of preliminary designs for a Mill Creek Park sewer interceptor project.

Youngstown waited until June 30, 2021, to request the federal government give it an extension — too late under the consent decree, Boyko ruled.

“Had they sought a delay (under a) provision agreed upon by the parties in the consent decree such stipulated penalties would not likely be an issue,” Boyko wrote. “Youngstown failed to abide by the terms of the consent decree and, as a result, must pay the penalties it agreed would be due and owed for such failures.”

Andy Resnick, the city’s spokesman, said: “Clearly we’re disappointed with the ruling. We are conferring with counsel to determine our options and next steps.”

Boyko wrote: “There is no ambiguity in the consent decree. The parties bargained for and the court ordered the establishment of milestones and stipulated penalties for any failure to meet those milestones. These stipulated penalties serve a vital role in a consent decree. Aside from putting the ‘iron hand in the velvet glove’ as a deterrent to ignoring the agreed upon deadlines, they serve the purpose of incentivizing the parties to maintain compliance with an agreed upon schedule when, as here, there is a protracted construction timeframe. Youngstown admits it failed to meet the milestones in the Mill Creek Park project due to increased costs. The parties agree in the consent decree that increased costs would not be a sufficient reason for failing to meet the milestones.”

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 plans to have 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.

TREATMENT PLANT

The first phase upgraded the city’s wastewater treatment plant and was completed Feb. 3, 2021. But the federal government argued — and Boyko agreed — that sludge handling improvements, not finished until June 30, 2021, were part of that project.

The project was supposed to be finished July 11, 2020, and makes up the largest part of the penalty imposed on Youngstown.

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 city also missed the April 15, 2021, milestone to submit the preliminary design report for the Mill Creek Park sewer interceptor project.

Design work was supposed to start July 11, 2020, and construction was to begin April 5, 2024.

The city plans a compressed schedule with the first two parts finished by May 29, 2028. The third part would be done by April 18, 2031, and the final part by Sept. 29, 2032.

The first two parts would be done 29 months and five months later than initially planned while the third part would be done nine months earlier than scheduled and the fourth done 15 months earlier, according to a court filing by the city.

That project was estimated to cost $47.7 million and will now cost more than $72 million, according to a court filing from the city.

The first two phases of that project, costing between $28 million and $43 million, will start in January.

Boyko wrote the city’s “sole reason for failing” to move ahead on the Mill Creek project “was due to increased costs,” which isn’t an acceptable excuse.

PENALTY LETTER

The project will keep wastewater from 13 lines from flowing into Lake Glacier and Lake Cohasset.

Pedro Segura, trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Section, first brought up the penalty in a Sept. 29, 2023, letter to the city. Segura wrote that the city should pay $1,479,000 — with half going to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the other half to Ohio’s EPA — because the city “defaulted” on following through with federally mandated wastewater treatment plant improvements on a timely basis.

The state EPA declined to seek the penalty and has largely sided with Youngstown during the court proceedings.

The city used the argument that the state EPA didn’t seek the penalty in trying to convince Boyko to side with it.

Boyko wrote: “The court finds that the Ohio EPA’s failure to itself move for stipulated penalties has no bearing on the government’s decision to pursue the same.”

Under the consent decree, the penalties for missing milestone dates are $200 a day for the first 30 days, $500 a day for days 31 to 60, and then $2,000 a day thereafter.

The city and federal government, along with the state of Ohio, “successfully finalized a proposed resolution,” according to a June 20 joint court filing to the ongoing dispute that permits the city to reduce a phase of the wastewater improvement project as part of a consent decree it signed in 2014.

In that joint filing, the federal government asked the court to wait until Aug. 26 to make the resolution official. It hasn’t been finalized as of Wednesday.

The city asked the court on March 15, 2024, to modify the consent decree over the construction of a 100-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility as part of the consent decree. That structure would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

The city argued the structure was too large and expensive. It suggested an 80-million-gallon-per-day facility.

The federal government agreed June 6 to the city’s request for a smaller facility because Youngstown is diverting 35.5 million gallons of combined sewage annually from the Mahoning River in an ongoing project, costing $10.5 million, as well as an earlier deadline on the wet weather facility and a compressed schedule on an interceptor sewer project.