WARREN — At Tuesday’s Trumbull County commissioners workshop, Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer Gary Newbrough asked commissioners to allow their clerk to seek requests for qualifications from private companies to provide Geographic Information System data collection services for the county’s water and sewer divisions.

The water department will be locating 2,154 water valves, 1,855 fire hydrants and 12,423 curb boxes using GIS equipment. The county owns and operates approximately 260 miles of water distribution mains.

The sanitary sewer division will be taking coordinates for 8,814 sanitary manholes around the county. The county owns and operates approximately 449 miles of sanitary sewer collection lines.

Newbrough told the commissioners if the county decides to use only in-house personnel to physically go to each of these water and sewer sites, it could take up to five to six years to complete the work.

“There are companies out there that this is what they do,” he said. “They go out and take coordinates for your GIS systems. We are not exactly sure how much this will cost us.”

Newbrough wants the county to put out a request for proposals for a company to do these GIS mappings so they can get an idea of how much it will cost.

“The whole purpose of the GIS is to help with operations in the field,” Newbrough continued. “The water operators will have laptops in the field and it will be able to notify them what needs to be done. The GIS system will be powerful and be the future of water.”

“The GIS will pay for itself, eventually,” he said.

Commissioner Tony Bernard questioned whether the department can get grants to pay for the project.

The commissioners are expected to vote today on an enterprise zone agreement with Charles Manufacturing Co. that would allow the metal fabrication company to expand its facility by 1,350 feet and add four jobs.

The company is seeking a 10-year, 75% tax incentive for the $270,000 construction project that is expected to create an additional six new offices in its building at 3021 Sferra Ave., Warren. Warren city council voted to approve the enterprise zone agreement on Feb. 11.

Also Tuesday, Gary Shaffer of the Trumbull County Engineer’s Office asked commissioners to approve bids from EFCC, LLC of North Lima; Soltis & Sons Enterprises LLC of West Farmington; and ARMS Trucking Co. of East Claridon to provide aggregate materials to the county.