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OEPA speaks on sewer plant issue

Investigative reporting from Mike Maurer

Below article is from This Week in Pickerington.

Hickory Lakes
Ohio EPA: Ball is in city's court

Thursday, December 18, 2003

MICHAEL J. MAURER
ThisWeek Staff Writer

The city of Pickerington is likely to have the option of purchasing the Hickory Lakes resort property at least through January, according to officials from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

"I don't want to leave the impression that the funding (for Hickory Lakes) is open-ended," said Greg Smith, Division chief of the Department of Environmental and Financial Assistance.

At the same time, Smith said, there is no specific date by which the pending applications become invalid.

"There isn't a specific date or time before which (the application) is OK and after which it is not," he said.

Under ordinary circumstances, it is not unusual for loan applications to be carried forward for a period of a few months, he said. Both Smith and environmental supervisor Steve Malone said that it is even possible that the Pickerington application could get carried over to the February Ohio Water Development Authority (OWDA) meeting.

However, both Malone and Smith said that, with a pending referendum against the EPA loan and a housing moratorium, Pickerington's application is anything but usual.

"This doesn't happen very often," Malone said.

The OWDA, which is responsible for approving the final loan application and the Hickory Lakes project, tabled the city's applications for both matters during a Dec. 11 meeting. The Ohio EPA had not yet completed some work related to public comments and other administrative matters, and the city had not yet submitted a signed loan application.

The authority will not act again until its next meeting on Jan. 29, but Malone said materials to support OWDA action that day would probably have to be prepared by mid-January.

The driving consideration for both Hickory Lakes and the wastewater treatment plant expansion would be what the city decides it wants to do.

"Our concern as (the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency) is not whether Pickerington uses the (water pollution control) loan program or whether they purchase or don't purchase Hickory Lakes," Smith said. "Our concern is that the city decide how it wants to proceed."

Smith said that currently, Pickerington is not violating any effluent standards.

However, the agency is concerned that the existing plant is operating at nearly full capacity, which means that any more growth could push the city over its limits.

The city's existing permit allows treatment of 1.8-million gallons of wastewater per day. However, the city's engineers have said that the plant's effective full capacity is only 1.2-million gallons per day and that the city is currently treating 1.1-million gallons.

Mayor-elect David Shaver said the issue is not the Hickory Lakes purchase, but rather whether the plant should be expanded.

"The new council and the new administration would like to take a step back and ask, 'Do we need to expand and if we do, are there cheaper alternatives?'" Shaver said.

He said that he expected to ask the city's existing plant engineers, R.D. Zande, to present alternatives to the plant expansion.

In addition, Shaver said he would begin discussions with Fairfield County to explore whether, if the plant expansion does go forward as planned, the county would enter into agreements to use some of the plant capacity.

Shaver said he is somewhat hobbled because he felt he could not initiate discussions before he takes office.

Malone said the agency has been working with the existing administration, which will leave office Dec. 31, and that it would work with the incoming administration once the new officers are seated.

However, at some point, the EPA is likely to face a decision about whether the Hickory Lakes purchase should be included, Malone said.

"My understanding is that, if the referendum goes through, it will be held up until the next general election," Malone said. "The question is whether the city could be considered to have decided it doesn't want to proceed. That's a full year from now."

Under normal wetlands resource restoration sponsor program standards, Hickory Lakes would not be likely to receive funding if a new application were to be completed this year, said Theresa Gordon of the EPA's Division of Environmental and Financial Assistance.

"It's eligible, but it ranks at the bottom," Gordon said.


mmaurer@thisweeknews.com