Akron will borrow $11 million for a sewer project that still needs a federal judge’s approval.
The City Council on Monday authorized Mayor Dan Horrigan and his staff to apply for the 0% interest loan from the Ohio Water Pollution Control Fund. The money will be used to plan, survey land, test soil and model flows for what is estimated to be the most expensive part yet in the city’s court-ordered $1.1 billion sewer reconstruction project.
In 2014, when U.S. District Judge John R. Adams approved the order requiring Akron to update its leaky old sewer system, the consent decree called for the construction of two massive tunnels, each designed to divert millions of gallons of mixed sewage and rain from spilling into the Ohio & Erie Canal or Little Cuyahoga River.
The Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel, at 27-feet in diameter and stretching the length of downtown from Exchange Street north to the Little Cuyahoga River, was completed last month at a cost of $184.1 million. A second Northside Interceptor Tunnel is estimated to cost $253 million, or what the first tunnel would have cost before a contractor came in nearly $70 million underbid.
"Now that the Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel is complete, the next big project is North Hill, which in our consent decree is a 24-foot diameter tunnel," Public Service Director Chris Ludle told the council Monday.
Horrigan has said for years that, with sewer customers ultimately picking up the bill, one tunnel is enough for Akron. The mayor wants to double up an existing sewer line running from east to west through North Hill. The tunnel, like the bulk of what Akron must replace, was designed over 100 years ago to combine rainwater and sewage. In heavy downpours, the system intentionally releases contaminated water into local streams and the river.
Under Horrigan’s alternative plan, sewer engineers would study each section of the North Hill sewer system, which includes four racks, or collection areas, that stretch from the edge of Chapel Hill near the Gorge Dam to Cuyahoga and Howard streets north of downtown. A separate sewer line would be built alongside the existing line to keep the sewage separate from the rainwater, which Ludle said would provide environmental benefits beyond what a single massive tunnel guarantees.
"We look to have an announcement later this fall on the elimination of the tunnel and going with the separation project," Ludle said.
No one on council questioned the administration’s eagerness to break ground as early as this year on a project that doesn’t have to be bid until April 2023, and could possibly be rejected by Judge Adams. The consent decree, as it stands, requires the Northside Interceptor Tunnel to be done by Dec. 31, 2026.
Ellen Lander Nischt, strategic counsel to the mayor, said the $11 million study and modeling in North Hill is the same process the city followed in the past to convince Judge Adams, as well as state and federal regulators, of the environmental and cost benefits of the first two amendments to the consent decree, which were approved in 2016 and 2018.
It was Adams contentious relationship with the previous administration that many observers blamed for the consent decree’s zero tolerance for effluent, which increased costs.
The city estimates that the first two amendments have saved ratepayers tens of millions of dollars by reengineering concrete pipes and catch basins or swapping them out with green infrastructure projects that use the earth’s natural ability to absorb rainwater.
Horrigan’s attempt at a third amendment would replace the mandated $253 million Northside Interceptor Tunnel with his proposed $225 million Northside Sewer Separation and Conveyance Program Management project. In exchange for approval, the mayor is offering to help with the removal of the Gorge Dam by storing contaminated river sediment underground on nearby city property.
If Adam’s approves the less costly separation project, Horrigan’s staff said a series of smaller projects would allow more contractors a chance to bid on the work and present opportunities to rid North Hill residents of old water service lines lined with lead, which can be toxic.
But Adams must approve the plan. After missing the deadline to complete the first tunnel, the judge recently ordered Akron to pay an outside consultant $550 an hour to oversee the remaining projects. The city is fighting that decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Reach reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3792.
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July 08, 2020 at 05:11AM
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Akron to borrow millions as city begins its most expensive sewer project - Akron Beacon Journal
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