Commission seeks grant, loan for sewer project

By Teresa Moore | The Tribune

Published Friday, August 14, 2009

The Lawrence County Commission agreed Thursday to pursue both a grant and a loan to help pay for a piece of equipment at the Union Rome Sewer system, but they want to know what happened to federal funding for the rest of the project.

Doug Cade, engineer with E.L. Robinson and Associates, said Ohio Environmental Protection Agency officials have alerted him the county is eligible for an EPA stimulus funds matching grant to help pay for a new belt sludge press that creates solid matter out of leftover waste from treated wastewater.

In solid form, the sludge can be disposed of at a landfill.

“At the old facility the press is more than 20 years old and is starting to have breakdowns,” Cade said. “We had this (a new belt sludge press) in the (larger) project but had to take it out to meet the budget.”

Cade told the commission the belt sludge press replacement was not eligible for the EPA funding until recently after other projects across the state had dropped off the agency’s funding list. Half of the approximately $2 million price tag for the belt sludge press would come from the EPA grant and half from a loan.

Cade said he hopes to go to bid late this year and have the project completed by mid-summer 2011.

In the meantime, commissioners want to know what happened to a promised $5 million federal earmark for the $23 million sewer expansion and replacement that was announced nearly two years ago.

They intend to press the matter when they visit Washington, D.C., in late September.

“We want to get every dollar available to us,” Commissioner Les Boggs said. Several business and government leaders have already agreed to make the trip in hopes of meeting not only with Voinovich but Sen. Sherrod Brown and Sixth District Congressman Charlie Wilson.

Sen. George Voinovich announced in 2007 that he had included $5 million for the sewer project in the Water Resources Development Act. But the county never got the money.

The sewer project was mandated by the Ohio E.P.A. in 2002 because the old plant leaked excessive amounts of ammonia into the Ohio River. County officials contend the new plant that has twice the capacity as the old one, will allowe for continued growth in the Chesapeake-Proctorville area. But the county has no money of its own to pay for the new plant and have had to rely on grants and loans. They view the $5 million on federal monies as vital to the project.

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