YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s board of control signed a contract with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to borrow $40,365,581 over 30 years for the first two phases of the ongoing sewer interceptor project at Mill Creek Park.

The contract also calls for the OEPA to forgive $2,406,360 of the project’s total cost of $42,771,941

The money is coming from the OEPA’s Water Pollution Control Loan Fund to be paid back over 30 years with a 3.48% interest rate, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

The board voted 2-0 Thursday on the contract. The board consists of Mayor Derrick McDowell, Finance Director Kyle Miasek and Law Director Adam Buente. Buente was absent Thursday.

The board signed a contract Oct. 9 with Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown for work to avert wastewater from flowing into Mill Creek Park’s Lake Glacier.

The city will draw down on the state loan, paying Marucci & Gaffney as bills come in, Shasho said.

The project started in January. The work must be finished no later than May 29, 2028, but Shasho said he expects it to be done in late 2027.

“Everything is going well with the project,” Shasho said.

The first two phases of the project will eliminate four sewer overflow lines into Lake Glacier. The project adds about 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, lowering of the lake’s water level to help reduce overflows and the relocation of utilities.

The board of control on Feb. 2 hired MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown for $3,127,144 to design the final two phases of the Mill Creek sewer interceptor project.

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

Shasho said about 30% of the design work on those two phases is finished. The design work is expected to be done with bids being accepted in late 2027, Shasho said.

That project is supposed to be finished by September 2032.

While Shasho didn’t have a cost estimate for the final two phases, he expects it to be under $40 million.

The Mill Creek work — which has shut down sections of the park — is part of a major consent decree the city entered into in 2014 with the federal government.

The city already made major improvements to its wastewater treatment plant as part of this effort.

The city will also construct an 80-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility. The structures in the facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

One major issue with all of this mandated work is the money and how the city will be able to pay for all of it.

The city has raised sewer fees annually by 5% to its customers, but that won’t be enough to pay for the work.

BUS PROJECTS

The board also voted 2-0 Thursday to sign a $224,167 contract with Parella-Pannunzio Inc. of Youngstown for projects on Fifth Avenue and Market Street that were supposed to be done years ago.

The contract is below the city’s $290,000 estimate for the work.

The largest part of the job is the installation of a bus pull-off on Market Street, near Federal Street, for Oh Wow! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology.

The other work is the installation of three bus shelters on Fifth Avenue near Youngstown State University.

The bus shelters were initially part of a 2019 project that finished in 2022 while the bus pull-off was supposed to be included in a project that started in 2023 and finished in 2024.