Published: Wednesday, February 14, 2007
New map to aid sewers
Officials expect to receive enough money by summer to build another phase of the bike trail.
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN — An updated map for wastewater planning will enable developers in places such as Southington Township to try to build sewers, and for the eastern part of Lordstown to plan for tying into Warren's treatment plant.
Such options could make sewer-line construction more likely in those areas than in the past, members of the Trumbull County Planning Commission were told Tuesday. They heard a presentation about changes made last summer to the "Facility Planning Area" map.
Stephanie Dyer, an Eastgate Regional Council of Governments environmental planner, said the previous map had Southington and the most rural parts of the county in areas designated as using septic systems only.
Now, the area is designated to use either septic systems or sewer lines if construction of sewers is deemed feasible by county Sanitary Engineer Gary Newbrough.
Updating wastewater planning areas on a map is done to assign appropriate options to each of 10 areas throughout Trumbull County served by a treatment plant. These plants are in Newton Falls, Warren, Weathersfield Township, Niles, Howland, Bazetta, Girard, Youngstown, Hubbard and Brookfield.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency uses the Facility Planning Area document as guidance for issuing permits to install sanitary sewer extension projects.
Potential for sewers
An Ohio EPA official suggested that the map show those areas as having the potential for sewer lines, said Alan Knapp, planning commission director. Knapp cautioned, however, that most of the rural areas — which make up about half of the county's land — "will not be served by sewers anytime soon."
Because of the previous designation in Southington, there was no general plan for sewers, but one could be drawn up now, Newbrough said. "Before you couldn't build sewers in Southington. Now you can."
Warren city would be the most likely to design such a plan for Southington because Warren's treatment plant would probably serve Southington, Newbrough said.
Knapp said another change made to the FPA map affects the eastern part of Lordstown. Under the old plan, that area would have been served by the Meander Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Weathersfield Township.
The new map says that area would be served by Warren's plant, Knapp said, which could allow sewers to be built sooner and less extensively than before. Lordstown requested the change, Knapp said.
runyan@vindy.com
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