Youngstown considers $7.3M for sewage project
Council to vote on funds for wastewater upgrades
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YOUNGSTOWN -- City council will consider legislation Monday to authorize the board of control to spend about $3.8 million on initial site work and up to $3.5 million to relocate utility lines for an estimated $170 million wastewater improvement project.
One ordinance would permit the board to advertise for bids and enter into contracts for the initial phase of the wet weather facility project at a cost of up to $3,779,391.57.
That work would include the demolition of any buildings on the project's location on Gibson Street, near Poland Avenue, as well as grading the site, removing pavement and installing security fencing, said Charles Shasho, the city's deputy director of public works.
"The earthwork and fencing are the most expensive parts of this project," he said. "There's a lot of dirt that has to be moved."
That project should go out for bids in October or November, Shasho said.
The work is for 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.
It is the third part of work, costing more than $300 million when done, by the city to improve its wastewater system as mandated by the federal government.
The other item on Monday's council agenda related to the wet weather facility is to spend up to $3.5 million to pay for the relocation of various utility lines for this project, Shasho said.
"It's a pretty fair estimate," Shasho said.
The city received a $1.5 million preliminary estimate from FirstEnergy to move the company's power lines for this project, Shasho said.
"We have to pay for the relocation of the utility lines under" state law, Shasho said.
That includes Enbridge Gas Co., AT&T and other utilities, he said.
The project, which has six contracts, is expected to cost about $170 million, though that amount could be exceeded, Shasho said.
In addition to the initial phase of demolition, grading and other work, the other phases would be to construct a tunnel, a grit and screening building, a pump station, instrumentation and electrical upgrades, and a high-rate treatment facility, Shasho said.
The wet weather project will start this fall with early preparation work, such as grading work, Shasho said.
The project must be finished by 2030 under a federal consent decree.
The city's initial agreement in 2014 called for the construction of a 100-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility. But the rising cost of the work and the disputed need for such a large system were why the city argued in a 2024 federal court motion to reopen the consent decree that requires it to make significant and expensive improvements to its wastewater system.
During lengthy negotiations between the city and the federal government, an agreement was reached to honor the city's request for the smaller facility. Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the U.S. District Court's Northern District of Ohio finalized the deal Oct. 9.
In a Nov. 12, 2024, amended motion to modify the consent decree, attorney Terrence S. Finn of the Roetzel & Andress law firm in Akron, which represents the city, wrote the project's initial estimate was $62 million, but is now more than $240 million.
The smaller 80-million-gallon facility has a preliminary cost estimate of about $170 million, though Shasho said it could end up being more.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency had originally ordered the city in 2002 to do $310 million worth of work, but it was negotiated down to $160 million in 2014 with the expectation it would be finished in 20 years.
The city plans to have all of the work done by Oct. 1, 2035.
The city insisted in court filings that if Youngstown complied with the mandates, the cost of all of the work would be about $380 million to $400 million -- well over twice what it agreed to do in 2014.
In a June 6, 2025, court filing, the federal government stated it "successfully finalized a proposed resolution" to the reduced facility because the city diverted 35.5 million gallons of combined sewage annually into the Mahoning River in a $10.35 million project that recently finished, as well as an earlier deadline on the wet weather facility and a compressed schedule on an interceptor sewer project to keep wastewater from 14 combined sewer overflow lines from dumping into Mill Creek Park's Lake Glacier and Lake Cohasset.
As part of the federal consent decree, the city hired Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown for $42.8 million for the first two phases of a four-part project to keep water from flowing into the two Mill Creek Park lakes.
The first two phases, which started in December, are to Lake Glacier, eliminating four of the 14 overflow lines. The project is replacing about 8,000 to 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, efforts to lower the lake and the relocation of utilities.
The project is supposed to be finished no later than May 29, 2028.
The city plans a compressed schedule with the third phase of the interceptor sewer work at the park to be done by April 18, 2031, and the final part by Sept. 29, 2032.
That project was estimated to cost $47.7 million and will now cost more than $72 million, according to a court filing from the city.
The city finished the first part of the sewer improvement work -- upgrades to its wastewater treatment plant -- on June 30, 2021, about a year later than required by the federal government.