WEST FARMINGTON — The West Farmington Wastewater system is ready to open. The village mayor unveiled the new plant during a Monday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The plant is ready for village residents to connect to the new system, but no one is hooked up yet, Mayor Shirley McIntosh said. Close to 200 land parcels should be connecting soon, though.

She said this project will allow the village to grow in a way it formerly was not able to do. Village project manager Mike McIntosh said the system has three times the capacity it is set to serve in the near future.

Located on Water Street, across from First Street, the plant will bring in wastewater, clean it and put it into the Grand River. This allows residents to upgrade from septic tanks, which Shirley McIntosh said will increase the value of people’s property and will give businesses new opportunities because they will be able to use more water than they can with a septic tank.

“I’ve said it over and over again. Yes, we are a small, disadvantaged, rural community, but we have potential,” Shirley McIntosh said.

She said this project came together with a lot of regional support, including from IBI Group, Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and the Northeast District Office of the Ohio EPA, the county engineer’s office and West Farmington village council.

The county commissioners are funding $322,400 for the cost of the connection of 43 low- to moderate-income households through the Community Development Block Grant Allocation Program, which is administered by the Trumbull County Planning Commission. That money covers the cost of professional engineering, construction administration, construction of the sanitary laterals and plumbing modifications, if necessary.

The entire wastewater system cost $9.157 million to implement. More than 60 percent of the project was funded through grants. The Ohio Public Works Commission awarded $950,000, the Appalachian Regional Commission awarded $187,000, the Ohio Water Development Authority awarded $250,000, $150,000 was awarded through the U.S. Community Development Block Grant and $4 million was awarded through the Ohio EPA.

“I remember the day I got the phone call that we got the $4 million. It was like, pinch me! Am I dreaming or what?” Shirley McIntosh said.

The remaining $3.62 million will be paid back to the Ohio EPA over 40 years with no interest.

Shirley McIntosh said the village is paying for the cost of each parcel of land to tap into the sanitary lines, but that individual households and businesses will be responsible for connecting to that tap.

She said this project would not have been possible if the village had not discovered several flaws with the American Community Survey, which is done through the U.S. Census. The mayor said she discovered a formula was used to guess data points, such as median household income and the various property values, rather than actual surveys being conducted.

This formula incorrectly identified the median household income of West Farmington $10,000 higher than it actually is, and that discrepancy made the village ineligible to get a large amount of funding for the project. Shirley McIntosh said if that had not been discovered and corrected, this project would not have happened because the amount of outside funding would have been much lower. She wants other rural communities to be aware of this, as the formula is more commonly incorrect with rural areas.

“This is definitely one of the most satisfying projects I’ve been involved in,” said Kurt Princic, Northeast district chief of the Ohio EPA. “You have a community that was handcuffed because they didn’t have proper infrastructure. Millions of dollars later, we have two systems — one for drinking water and one for wastewater.”

In 2019, the Blueprint to Prosperity Waterline Initiative Project was finished. The $15 million project has brought water to mostly rural areas in northwest Trumbull County. The Ohio EPA forgave 75 percent of the cost of the project to bring county water to residents in Braceville, Southington, Farmington and West Farmington.