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WARREN -- Warren Township trustees on Tuesday told Trumbull County commissioners dozens of residents fear the county will replace the concrete pavement on dozens of township roads with chip and seal that will deteriorate in a few years.
It then will be up to the township to maintain and improve the roads.
The county is nearing completion of phase one of the $40 million Meadowbrook Sanitary Sewer Improvement project. The project involves construction of a wastewater treatment plant on the banks on the Mahoning River and a collection system that will service 700 residents.
The county is now working on the second phase of the project, called Pendleton-Gillmer, and the county will open bids for the Caleb Road portion within the next two weeks.
Trustees Edward Anthony and Ryan Yoho during Tuesday's commissioners workshop said that while residents are highly appreciative of the new sewer lines being placed in the township, many are upset at the prospect of admittedly deteriorated concrete roads being replaced with chip and seal pavement.
"The county is only planning to do the minimum," Yoho said. "Right now we have a patchwork quilt going on there. They are cutting up swaths of pavement, and it doesn't level up to the next road because they are not milling it. They are going to patch it together and then put a chip seal on top."
Sanitary Engineer Gary Newbrough told trustees the funding agency for the project, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, is providing only enough funding to get the road back to the condition it was before the beginning of the project.
Newbrough said the majority of the paved roads were in poor condition prior to the sewer project's start. He noted these roads were difficult to traverse.
"This is not my choice on how much we can do," Newbrough said "They only provide funds to restore to the original (condition) and those roads, I would venture to say, were more cold patch than pavement. The roads were in deplorable condition."
The project covers Warren Township's entire downtown area.
"What we are going to have is 20 roads, which is one-third of our township, because of a sewer that has been brought into them, which, technically, we did not ask for, and now you're going to penalize them by turning all the roads into chip and seal," Anthony said. "There should have been more planning. All we are asking is if the roads are paved now, why turn all of our roads into chip and seal."
Newbrough said the majority of the road repair will not occur until the third and fourth wave of the project that will take place next spring.
"The majority of our residents do not want chip and seal roads," Anthony said. "They understand the roads were not great, but they were paved."
Gary Shaffer of the Trumbull County Engineer's Office suggested that while chip and seal roads may not be great, if they are properly maintained, they can last three to four years.
Commissioners Anthony Bernard and Denny Malloy each noted they would have thought the roads would have been restored to the original condition. Bernard suggested having EPA officials come to the area and look at the road.
"We should not have to beg to allow us to take care of our township," Malloy said. "We should not strive for minimum conditions, but to beautify and make it better than when we came in to do it."
"Our residents deserve better than the minimum," Commissioner Rick Hernandez said.
The commissioners expressed a willingness to work with the county sanitary engineering and engineering offices and Warren Township trustees in an attempt to convince the EPA to use concrete material for the road.