CANFIELD — A drinking water line will be installed in Canfield Township, through the auspices of the ABC Water and Stormwater District. But arriving at the approval was no easy task.

At a meeting Tuesday, ABC board members Austintown Trustee Robert Santos, Canfield Township Administrator Keith Rogers, and chairman and Boardman Township Administrator Jason Loree voted on three measures, including a water line extension along South Turner Road.

The drinking water line, which will be serviced and maintained by the City of Youngstown Water Department, will extend about 6,500 feet from South Turner and Gibson roads to just beyond Herbert Road. The township hopes to break ground before the end of the year.

“Canfield’s project is to bring out a potable water drinking line to parts of undeveloped areas that will allow other people that live in Canfield to tap in,” Loree said. “It’s a drinking water project so it has nothing to do with stormwater, but if successful, it will help redevelopment and development in Canfield going forward, and bring some much needed water service to people that do not actually have a municipal water line.”

Loree and Santos voted to approve the project, while Rogers abstained.

The main issue the district faced with approving the project is that while ABC can help to facilitate both drinking water and stormwater projects, it cannot legally use stormwater district fees to support drinking water projects, and it does not currently have a dedicated source of funding for drinking water projects.

“We had to go back and forth several times to make sure that we were compliant with the requirements from the Army Corps of Engineers for this project, and the district has to be very careful,” Loree said. “So with the assistance of Canfield Township, that they approved, they will be providing the in-kind match, in the form of a grant, to help bring the construction of this project in Canfield to fruition.”

Rogers said the project will be funded largely through a $1 million grant through the Army Corps in the form of Congressionally Directed Spending, with a $325,000 local match.

As recently as Monday evening, though, when Loree mentioned the ABC meeting at Boardman’s regular meeting of the Township Board of Trustees, it was unclear if the measure would pass.

The resolution includes terms that allow Loree to make revisions to review the agreement and make changes as needed, as the project progresses.

“There’s a section in that motion that says if we need to change something to make sure we’re in compliance, we’re going to do that and allow me to sign off,” he said.

Loree praised Rogers for negotiating with Youngstown and getting Canfield’s board of trustees to approve the terms, albeit at the last minute. Loree said he would have preferred a more thorough review and discussion of the motion.

“When it comes to doing something like this, it got down to the last minute and that’s not how I like to operate, and I’m sure it’s not how you like to operate,” he said. “If it was me trying to do this with my board of trustees at the last minute, if it were a dire emergency, I think they would get it. But it seems like we went back and forth on this so many times unnecessarily, so it was just a bit frustrating. I’m glad we got it done for you, and I hope the project succeeds, but moving forward, if we get into a situation where it’s like this again, I’m not so sure I’d be more apt to approve or even recommend colleagues to approve something that doesn’t get vetted properly through everybody’s legal counsel.”

The ABC board also approved an engineering and design contract with environmental design firm Verdantas for an unrelated project along South Turner Road for $147,000, as well as a $12,000 engineering and design contract with Thomas Fok and Associates for curb and gutter replacement in Westbury Park in Canfield, as part of the township’s 2026 paving program. The work will replace about 1,300 lineal feet of curbing that Rogers called “atrocious.”

He said fixing the curbs and gutters now ensures that no unnecessary or extraneous corrections need to be made after paving is completed.