YOUNGSTOWN — City council will consider a request Wednesday to authorize the board of control to sign a $5.5 million contract with MS Consultants Inc. to provide construction administration for the first two phases of a sewer interceptor project at Mill Creek Park and to design the latter two parts.

The city hired MS, which has an office in Youngstown, to do extensive design work on its major wastewater improvement project mandated by a federal consent decree.

That includes $4.8 million to design most of the first two phases of the project to avert wastewater from flowing into Mill Creek lakes. The board of control on Dec. 4 approved a $7.63 million contract with MS for design work for a wet weather facility that would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms.

The first two phases of the Mill Creek project will start next month with Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown doing the work for $42,771,942. It will be finished no later than May 29, 2028.

The first two phases will be to Lake Glacier. It will eliminate four sewer overflows, replace about 8,000 to 9,000 linear feet of sewer lines that range in size from 36 inches to 60 inches with a new 96-inch sewer line as well as bridge work, river crossings and lowering of the lake’s water level to help reduce overflows and the relocation of utilities.

The city is seeking a $5 million Senate appropriation for the project and has requested at least partial principal forgiveness on the loan from the state to help reduce the debt, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works. Paying back the loan will require yet another sewer rate increase for city customers.

Council’s legislation would authorize the board of control to enter into the contract for up to $5.5 million with MS to serve as the city’s construction administrator and field representative for the first two phases of the project, Shasho said.

As part of the $5.5 million contract, MS will design the final two phases of the Mill Creek project.

Those two phases will eliminate 10 sewer overflows into the park’s Lake Cohasset.

It will take more than a year for MS to design those phases, with work expected to start in April 2028. The work is supposed to be finished by September 2032.

Shasho said the MS contract “is another step forward” in complying with the 2014 consent decree.

In addition to eliminating the sewer overflows at Mill Creek Park, the city made major improvements at its wastewater treatment plant.

It also will construct an 80-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility. The city was initially supposed to build a facility that held 100 million gallons per day but successfully negotiated with the federal government in court to reduce that amount.

The city also paid a $739,500 penalty Sept. 24 for missing the deadline on the wastewater treatment plant work and for missing an April 15, 2021, milestone to submit the preliminary design report for the Mill Creek sewer project. 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 wrote in court filings that if it complied with the mandates, the cost would be about $380 million to $400 million – well over twice what it agreed to do 11 years ago. The wet weather facility reduction is expected to save the city about $60 million.