A federal judge officially finalized the agreement between Youngstown and the U.S. Department of Justice as to how the city will proceed with a major wastewater improvement project.

The federal government signed off on a final resolution to Youngstown’s plan to reduce the project’s scope on Sept. 3, nearly 18 months after the city filed a court motion to reopen negotiations.

But Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Ohio, overseeing the case, waited until Thursday to give his approval.

Boyko gave the city until this Thursday to file a notice withdrawing its motion to modify the consent decree it signed with the federal government in 2014. That will close out the case.

“The city of Youngstown agrees to entry of this amendment without further notice and agrees not to withdraw from or oppose entry of this amendment by the court or to challenge any provision of the amendment, unless the United States has notified the city of Youngstown in writing that it no longer supports entry of the amendment,” Boyko wrote.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency 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.

The city insisted in court filings 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.

At the heart of the city’s concern was the construction of a 100-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility. The structures in the facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

The city argued in a March 15, 2024, motion to reopen the consent decree that the facility was too large and expensive. It suggested an 80-million-gallon-per-day facility.

During lengthy negotiations between the city and the federal government — with the state of Ohio as an interested party — that included four extensions sought and granted by Boyko, an agreement was reached to honor the city’s request for the smaller facility.

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

The smaller facility has a preliminary cost estimate of about $180 million, but that is most likely to change once design work is done.

Design work on the facility would start in January 2026 and take about two years to complete with construction on multiple buildings, pump stations and tunnels starting in 2028.

The city and the state approved the project’s modifications months ago, according to an April 22 status report filed with Boyko.

In a June 6 court filing, the federal government stated it “successfully finalized a proposed resolution” to the reduced facility because the city is diverting 35.5 million gallons of combined sewage annually into the Mahoning River in an ongoing project, costing about $10.5 million, as well as an earlier deadline on the wet weather facility and a compressed schedule on an interceptor sewer project to keep wastewater from 13 lines — the city recently revised it to 14 – from flowing into Mill Creek Park’s Lake Glacier and Lake Cohasset.

The Sept. 3 federal filing states the city has discussed the financial aspects of the project, including increasing sewer rates by 5% annually for four years, citing two Vindicator articles in 2024 on the issue.

The day before the federal government filed the final consent decree amendment, Boyko sided with the United States in its demand for the city to pay a $739,500 penalty for missing deadlines on the two other phases of the wastewater project.

The city missed milestone dates for the completion of an upgrade to its wastewater treatment plant and the submission of preliminary designs for the Mill Creek Park sewer interceptor project.

The city paid the penalty on Sept. 24.

The project’s first phase upgraded the city’s wastewater treatment plant and was completed Feb. 3, 2021. But Boyko agreed with the federal government’s argument 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, a city 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.

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 $42,771,942, must start by January, but will probably commence before that.

The project is supposed to be finished no later than May 29, 2028, but Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said he expected it to be done in late 2027.