LORDSTOWN — Village officials and residents expressed their objections to the Trumbull Energy Center being given a renewed permit for discharging wastewater into Mud Creek when it should instead use the available nearby village sanitary sewer system.

Nearly 100 people attended a 90-minute public hearing Wednesday on the proposed renewal.

The center is a natural gas fired combined cycle power plant off Tod Avenue. Officials said commercial operation of the plant is anticipated for this spring.

Mayor Jackie Woodward, who was among several village officials to speak, said the concern is excess water from TEC would cause flooding of Mud Creek — which would flood nearby residential properties — and affect livestock that drink from the creek because of industrial chemicals used in the cooling process that may be in the discharged water.

She said the village opposes the renewal of the permit with the possible discharge of 620,000 gallons of water per day into Mud Creek.

“We are deeply concerned this mass of daily water volume will result in flooding and threaten livestock and property values. Mud Creek is not an industrial drainage ditch. Discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of water daily into a creek that already overflows during heavy rains is a recipe for property damage and agricultural loss. It is a shallow natural waterway that flows through farmlands and residential areas,” Woodward said.

Woodward said there is an available alternative with sanitary sewers that have been improved to hold increased capacity and handle industrial discharge.

“We have available infrastructure designed for this very purpose,” she said.

Erm Gomes with the EPA’s division of surface water said the center is seeking a five-year renewal of the permit. He said the center is not discharging any water right now, but will when the Trumbull Energy Center is in full operation this spring.

He said the discharge from the center would go first to a cooling pond before entering the creek. Gomes said the chlorine and other chemicals in the water would need to be removed from the discharge.

Councilman Jamie Moseley said he is concerned about who will monitor what is discharged into the creek. Gomes said the center would be required to submit monthly samples of the discharge to the EPA to be checked in the lab to see if they are in compliance or if there are any violations. He said the center would have a certain amount of time to get in compliance.

Woodward said there should be “an unbiased third party to monitor the discharge into the creek” appointed by the EPA or the village

“By allowing the facility to monitor its own discharge creates a fox monitoring the hen house situation. We want to give residents peace of mind,” Woodward said.

RESIDENTS VOICE CONCERNS

Residents at the meeting expressed concern about the discharged water’s effect on the aquatic life in the creek and noted that during heavy rains the creek already overflows.

Resident Jeff Alderman asked if the creek floods because of rainfall or other weather events, could the center not discharge into the creek and make the situation worse.

Gomes said the EPA does not have the authority to dictate when the company can discharge, He said the EPA does check creeks across the state on a five-year rotating basis.

Resident Michael Grimm said there is already a lot of documented overflowing of Mud Creek, which goes to nearby Salt Springs Road.

Resident Stacy Johnson said the discharge will affect the health of the watershed area, which is near the drinking water, and the industrial waste discharge into the stream creates ”an unacceptable long-term environmental and public health risk for the community.”

She said an alternative would be offsite water treatment that can be trucked in and out of the facility.

“The additional wastewater discharge into the stream will compound the problem causing downstream flooding. We have the sewers available,” Village Solicitor Matt Ries said