Wellville Council Sewage Committee

Wellsville Council's Sewage Committee met last Thursday to be briefed on the results of having some storm sewers jet rodded and inspected. Present at the meeting was Sewage Committee Chairman Randy Allmon and Committee members Susan Haugh & Tony Cataldo. Also attending was Councilman Joe Soldano, Village Administrator Jim Saracco, Fiscal Officer Dale Davis, WFD Chief Bill Smith, United Water's Greg Stewart and LSW's Doug Logan, Brad Long & Debbie. The meeting was held at the Fire Station.

LSW was contracted to inspect storm sewers, especially in areas that experience flooding after a heavy rain. The heavy rain experienced in June of this year caused flooding in those trouble areas plus many others. There are some places in town that accumulate rain water whether it's a heavy rain or not. LSW was contracted to initially check six areas but that grew out of necessity trying to get some of the lines open.

LSW's Brad Long reviewed a day-by-day log of all areas that was worked on and what was found. The job started on October 21 and was wrapped up on November 16. Generally speaking Wellsville's
storm sewers and man holes are clogged up and unable to move the rain water from our streets to the river.

Long noted that most of the debris found in the man holes, catch basins and sewer lines are road dirt. In one area at 10th & Center, 36 bottles, a gallon jug, dirt, rocks and gravel were removed. Some man holes were filled to the brim with debris. The same is true with some of the catch basins that Logan advised is indicative of a line collapse. Many of the lines are so clogged that the company could not get through with the jet rod. Two areas were found with a strong odor of fuel or oil. One was near the old Sterling China and another area at 15th Street. The cause of the odor was undetermined.

It is now up to Village officials to determine what to do. Consensus was that it has to be determined what is causing the blockages in the main lines. It could be impacted dirt and debris or, with the age of most of our storm sewer system, collapsed lines. Many of the lines in place are ones originally installed made of clay pipe or brick.

Councilman Tony Cataldo dropped a bomb shell on nearly everyone present when asked if, after the proposed forced main project and the Highland Avenue project, there is money available to take on another sewage project. Cataldo announced that Highland Avenue was not going to get done due hidden costs in the Sewage Treatment Plant digester conversion project.

When started it was planned to pay for the digester project using grants from OMEGA and the Ohio Public Works with no money coming out of Village coffers. The other two projects were going to be paid for using the recently released funds from the State Tribal Assistance Grant (STAG) and the Sewage Update Fund. The STAG funds are nearly $600,000 and as of the end of October there was a little over $298,000 in the Sewage Update. That was estimated to be enough for the forced main and Highland Avenue projects.

According to Cataldo Engineer Bill Boyle, formerly of the GGJ Consulting Engineers firm, had hidden $112,000 in funds from the STAG money and applied that to the digester project. At the time this was done the STAG funds had not been released by the EPA. It came to light when GGJ President Rob Jurs supplied the Village with a cost schedule for the digesters. Cataldo said the Fiscal Officer brought it to his attention a couple of weeks ago when Jurs supplied the cost schedule. Even the Sewage Committee chairman said he knew nothing about it until Cataldo announced it at Thursday's meeting. Boyle “retired” from GGJ earlier this fall. With having to use that $112,000 the Highland Avenue project is once again put on the back burner. Cataldo said there are still enough funds to go ahead with the forced main replacement project.

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