Big sewer upgrades coming in Wadsworth

WADSWORTH — Large-scale upgrades to the city's sanitary sewer system are likely in the coming years after recent talks between city officials and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Work will include replacement of pipes, expanding the size of existing ones, and possible construction of new storage areas with the goal of negating use of the city's nine sanitary sewer overflow sites, which now go against Ohio EPA standards. The Ohio EPA gave Wadsworth three months to come up with a basic plan to address the upgrades, which the city has done, but has not issued any formal orders or penalties. Ensuing project engineering and inspection could cost as much as $500,000 but a price tag for actual work is still to be determined, said City Public Service Director Robert Patrick. In 2018, Wadsworth renewed its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit with the Ohio EPA, which grants a municipality permission to discharge water from its sewer system into a body of water owned by the state. The permit regulates sewer discharges by limiting the quantity of pollutants and by imposing monitoring requirements among other conditions. The nine overflow sites were documented during this permit renewal. "The discharges were to alleviate hydraulic loading on the system during heavy rains, back then these were put in," Patrick said, speaking of the overflow sites. "This was standard practice in the past to allow some overflow or overloading. Now, those aren't allowed. Taking a look at that permit, we can't allow any discharges of untreated water to ultimately go to where our waters of the state is, which is River Styx." "The permit covers all aspects of wastewater," he later said. "It's not just the treatment plant. It's also the connection system, the lift stations, and the plant. It encompasses the whole system. Talks between the city and Ohio EPA have been underway for about six months. "We've put together a pretty comprehensive plan," Patrick said. "It's going to allow us to thoroughly map all of those structures, evaluate the causes and how frequently those overflows occur. We've been doing some testing out there. Some of them are very infrequent and some are more frequent than others. We'll prioritize the different problem areas and be able to create a capital program for the repairs." Patrick said the plan presented to the Ohio EPA was met with approval and the promise of no future fines or penalties as long as the work is carried out, a process that is expected to take "a number of years." "We'll have to make sure we meet all of this criteria," he said. "We'll talk about it in the budget coming up because that plan is going to cost about a half-million dollars. We'll have to engage with a planning or consulting firm. After the first of the year, we'll have to find some companies to do some investigation in those areas." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330) 721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.