BOARDMAN — Township officials will seek state aid to advance a historic federal grant project to relieve flooding problems.

In October 2024, Boardman trustees announced a $47 million Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address major flooding problems within the Cranberry Run Watershed, around the Boardman Plaza and up to Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery.

Boardman obtained the grant through the ABC Water and Stormwater District, chaired by the township’s administrator, Jason Loree.

“This is the first time a community has received FEMA funding, and it was a huge achievement for the township and the district. We are hoping the state will help with support to make this project a success,” Loree said.

The grant requires a local match of roughly $11 million, and at the weekly trustees meeting, Loree said Boardman will seek most of that money in state capital funding. The deadline for that application is March 12.

State capital funding requests are submitted directly to a local community’s state representative and/or state senator, and they commonly fund construction, renovation and infrastructure projects.

Loree said the township is preparing its request for the award and plans to meet with State Rep. Tex Fischer, R-Canfield, and State Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, within the next week or so.

FEMA released $3.1 million in September 2024 for Phase 1, the engineering and design portion of the project. That portion requires a $1 million local match, which Loree said is being covered by $500,000 in state budget funding and $500,000 from ABC.

That leaves $10 million in matching funds that Boardman and ABC must secure for the construction phase. Loree said state capital funding is the best option.

“Typically the township would submit a couple different requests for the (state) budget, but they would not equal the amount we’re asking for this year,” Loree said. “So normally we would get a smaller award out of the few requests we submitted, but in this case we are committed to nailing down a larger request to help with this community-changing project.”

Without that support from Columbus, he said, ABC will have to provide the match using stormwater fee revenues, which would effectively eliminate the district’s ability to fund other projects for several years.

“But it is the only viable alternative without state support,” Loree said. “This project will impact over 1,500 homes, and the (Route) 224 business corridor encompassing the area of the Boardman Plaza.”

Fischer and Cutrona said they are willing to help however they can, but the township’s request may be excessive for the funding route it is attempting to take.

“This is my first time through the capital budget process, but I think it is extremely uncommon to have a request for that large an amount from the Community Projects Fund,” FIscher said, noting Ohio allocates about $200 million in total for those projects statewide.

Most projects supported by that fund are awarded anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 he said, and even cities like Columbus and Cleveland would be unlikely to receive an amount as large as Boardman is requesting.

That does not mean the township cannot obtain the funds in some fashion, though.

“I’ve yet to see their ask, but obviously, I’ll be very supportive of their request for anything to help with that project,” Fischer said. “I was a Boardman resident for eight years, and I’m very familiar with the severity of the flooding problems.”

Fischer and Cutrona said there are multiple options once it is determined that Boardman’s request is qualified for any state funding, such as revolving loans from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency,, funding from the Ohio Public Works Commission, the Ohio Department of Development’s All Ohio Fund and others.

“From the Community Projects Fund, I think the most we would be able to accomplish is a percentage of Boardman’s request,” Cutrona said. “But I think it’s a very important project, and if we can take any of that burden off of the township and the district, we certainly want to. All it takes is the township’s willingness to be creative.

Fischer and Cutrona have both made efforts in recent years to provide funding to the township for flooding, including securing funds in last year’s capital budget for part of the Forest Lawn Stormwater Park project and other flood mitigation efforts this year, Cutrona said.

THE PROBLEM AND THE PROJECT

Since 2018, Boardman has endured three 500-year to 1,000-year storms.

The flooding they cause does not just affect the roads. Parking lots and stores are flooded, residents’ basements and garages back up, and the water is not all rainwater, either.

Loree explained when the township announced the grant that rainwater gets into the sanitary system through its many connections that exist there, and the system cannot handle it.

In the decades since the township expanded around the watershed, the streams have failed to keep up with the excess runoff, and blockages caused by erosion make the flooding worse.

The concept summary the township submitted — First to Ohio EMA, which approved it and passed it onto FEMA — states that the problem originated with the township’s expansion in the 1940s and 1950s, when the plaza and the homes around Cranberry Run were constructed with no stormwater detention. Houses were built right next to or directly on top of the streams, which were either channelized with block walls or completely piped.

As Mahoning County’s population grew and many Youngstown steel mill workers moved to Boardman, Route 224 was widened from two lanes to six, again with no stormwater detention plans in place, and the same for the construction of the plaza and Southern Park Mall.

The houses and buildings also were constructed before regulations prohibited tying in footer drains with sanitary systems. Loree said 80% of the homes in Boardman are built with that flaw. The multi-pronged project itself aims to solve most of these issues by diverting water down Glenwood Avenue and into Mill Creek Park.

“By bringing the water down Glenwood on its own path and diverting it from the neighborhoods…we’re slowing it down, creating less erosion, putting naturalized areas in that weren’t there before,” Loree said.

He said the task would have taken the township 50 to 60 years to complete without the FEMA grant. “Now we’re doing it in a matter of three to five years.”

The first part of the construction phase of the project involves installing a conduit along Glenwood Avenue, followed by improvements to the stream section within an Ohio Edison easement that lets out at West Boulevard on its way to Mill Creek Park. This portion includes floodplain mitigation and expansion.

Part 2 simply includes installing green space at the Boardman Plaza, around the former Rite-Aid. The next part includes installing detention basins behind the plaza, taking down some apartment complexes behind Save-A-Lot for more detention space, and likely installing green space or underground detention in the plaza parking lot. The final component involves improvements to a storm sewer and culvert in the Rockdale area.

Loree said Rockdale is separate from the main scope of the project and likely will be completed at the same time as the work around the plaza.

He also said the township will work with Mahoning County to complete the conduit work along Glenwood at the same time as a major renovation to that road is underway.

County Engineer Patrick Ginetti’s office announced in 2024 a $9 million project to restripe the road from Midlothian Boulevard to Western Reserve Road and install a roundabout at Wildwood Drive.

These projects also will overlap with ODOT’s $20 million overhaul of Route 224 from Market Street to Tiffany Boulevard South, slated to begin in spring and continue through fall 2027. That project will leave Route 224 commonly reduced to one lane in each direction, leaving only a brief gap between Market and Glenwood where there is no active construction.