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Township seeks to stall dam project

WARREN — At a packed Trumbull County commissioners meeting Wednesday, Warren Township Trustee Kay Anderson and resident Debbie Roth voiced concerns about the impending removal of the Leavittsburg dam and asked commissioners to take legal action to stall the project.

For several years, Warren Township residents have worried that septic discharge that currently runs directly into the Mahoning River will be exposed if the dam is removed and the water level drops, causing potential health risks.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow for residents, because we had a meeting in 2019 in the Johnson Community Center, and we packed — just packed — the building with people who brought it up to the EPA and the county how opposed they were to this, and it just fell on deaf ears,” Anderson said.

For years, the county has been working on the $15 million Meadowbrook sanitary sewer project, designed to eliminate sewer nuisances in the area. County Sanitary Engineer Gary Newbrough has said the project, which includes building a small wastewater treatment plant, should break ground later this year, but may not be complete until 2025.

The dam is expected to be removed in 2024, after the removal of the Warren Summit Street dam next year. Both are part of a multicommunity, multimillion dollar project coordinated by Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.

Trumbull County MetroParks,which is a separate entity from the commissioners, owns the Leavittsburg dam and approved its removal last year.

“We’ve waited more than a quarter of a century to get sewers placed in our neighborhoods to stop illegal discharge of septic systems into the Mahoning River. Now, with a plan in place, we have the Trumbull County MetroParks board not wanting to even hear of delaying the dam removal until the sewer project is complete,” Roth said.

She said the reason MetroParks has given for not delaying the removal is that it could lose the grant money if it waits.

“Well, that’s the answer that any Trumbull County resident would want to hear. Getting money is more important than the potential environmental dangers we can place on your lives,” Roth said.

Roth also raised concerns about destruction of natural habitats in that area and impacts to endangered animals.

She asked commissioners to seek an injunction to slow the dam removal.

“Demand that these issues and concerns have been addressed, and the dam project is delayed until we can be sure of all the potential impacts we can make,” Roth said.

Commissioners Frank Fuda and Niki Frenchko both appeared willing to ask the county prosecutor’s office about the possibility of filing an injunction.

Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said he would rather exhaust the diplomatic routes of solving the problem before taking that kind of action.

Fuda said that at a recent meeting at Eastgate, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency didn’t agree on the best course of action for the Leavittsburg dam.

“The best thing to do is to get all the parties in a room here to discuss it,” Fuda said.

In other business, commissioners voted to deny a petition to vacate a portion of Jessie Road in Brookfield Township after having a public hearing on the matter prior to the regular board meeting.

The undeveloped road connects the southeastern ends of Balint Avenue and Francis Street.

The petition by Kathryn Pasquerilla, Lori Henning, Robert Oliver, James Sepulveda and Michael and Constance Stahura, who own properties that abut Jessie Road, also known as Jesse Road, claimed the road had never been improved, used by the public or maintained by Brookfield Township or Trumbull County. It said Brookfield Township lost all rights to the alley because it was “abandoned” and not used for 21 years.

In a letter to commissioners, Brookfield Township Trustee Dan Suttles disagreed, saying that the alley is used by township snowplows that otherwise couldn’t maneuver on the dead-end streets.

Cantalamessa said denying the vacation came at the advice of the county prosecutor’s office and the trustees. Frenchko said commissioners could not vacate the road without the township’s approval.

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