Chinn Allotment sewer project kicks off, but residents still worry about costs

County officials were told last month Congressman Dave Joyce’s office had scored $2 million in U.S. EPA grant money to help property owners in Ravenna Township’s Chinn Allotment, but who will get how much remains a mystery.

At issue is the county’s 2019 decision to install new sewer lines in the Chinn allotment, where residents relied on what the Portage County Combined General Health District concluded in 2018 were non-functional or sometimes non-existent septic systems.

Tying into the soon-to-be-constructed sewer main is not optional, even for property owners who can prove their septic systems are fully functional.

Big projects equal big price tags. Thanks to redesigns that delayed the project for years, the county’s original $18 million-plus estimate was eventually dialed in at $9.72 million. Even $8,925,000 in state and federal grants doesn’t cover the full amount, leaving many property owners reaching into their savings.

Calculating distributions

A necessary definition: Portage County Water Resources Director Dan Blakely explained that each single-family home or parcel that can hold a single-family home equals one benefit unit. The Chinn allotment has 255 of them, scattered along part of Red Brush Road/Brady Lake Road, Genevieve Road, Plainview Road, Lois Road, Marchinn Road, Woodlawn Avenue, Roselawn Avenue, Rose Street, Wall Street, Mabel Avenue and San Mar Street.

Since some of the allotment’s approximately 177 property owners hold multiple parcels that can or do hold benefit units or single parcels that can or do hold multiple benefit units, their financial liability rises accordingly.

If the current project estimate holds — which won’t be known until the final bill is paid — each of Chinn’s benefit unit owners will be assessed for $3,117, likely payable over a decade with their property taxes, Blakely said.

That’s just for the construction costs of the sewer project.

Blakely says the sewer project will safeguard the Chinn residents’ health and safety, but they’re looking at dollar signs. Each benefit unit owner also faces private costs associated with disconnecting current septic systems, crushing and filling septic tanks, installing necessary internal plumbing, inspection fees, running lateral pipes from their homes to the county sewer line and mandatory tie-in fees.

Residents whose restrooms are below the sewer mains, or not at a pitch that allows waste to flow where it needs to go, also have to buy and install external lift stations. Those grind what leaves the house into liquid and sends it onto and into the sewer mains.

That’s where the $2 million Ohio EPA grant comes in. It’s meant to help with the property owners’ private costs, but Portage County Regional Planning Commission Director Todd Peetz knows it won’t even cover everyone’s tie-in costs.

Should the $2 million grant be evenly divided, each benefit unit owner would receive almost $7,800. Peetz said he favors that formula, but acknowledges there may be others. The EPA has the final word, but it hasn’t forwarded the actual grant agreement to county officials yet, so the actual distribution criteria remains unknown.

No matter: the money won’t go far. Louis Muñoz, owner of Portage Pumps of Ohio in Ravenna, told The Portager he charges $8,000-$10,000 per lift station. Tariffs, he said, are sending that price nowhere but up.

Residents expect extra costs

Chinn resident Krystel Tossone has been holding monthly neighborhood meetings about the project for years. Uneasy about bills she and her neighbors are facing, she said a project redesign that decreased the depth of the sewer mains means more people need lift stations.

Blakely counters that the deeper design would have seen the project cost skyrocket.

“Instead of $8.9 million covering a $9.7 million project, it could easily have been $8.9 million covering an $18 million project,” he said. “The redesign was to cut the overall cost of the project and make it more palatable for everybody across the board, particularly the benefit unit holders, because they're the ones that are going to pay the lion's share of this.”

The tap-in fees cover costs associated with the financial impact the additional flow of wastewater will have on the sewers, pump stations and wastewater treatment plant, he said.

“It’s not an arbitrary fee. We're not just doing a cash grab. Maintaining these systems is a very expensive proposition, especially over the course of a lifetime,” he said.

Tossone’s goal is what it has been for years: to get the Chinn property owners' costs down to zero.

“We’re not there yet, even for the cost of constructing the sewer,” she said.

Officials look for more money

Peetz understands. He’s working with state Rep. Heidi Workman, hoping another $1.3 million for the project will be included in Ohio’s 2027-28 capital budget.

Whatever the ultimate assessments and out-of-pocket costs are, Blakely calls the money ultimately well spent. Since the Ohio EPA has mandated a sewer system instead of septic tanks, he said the project ensures that each buildable lot is potentially useful to its owners.

“There’s a reason they call them benefit units,” he said. “Once those sewer mains get put in there, that drives the value of the property up tremendously, because now you can tie into a utility and you can build a house.”

“Without sewer utility, and without the ability to install septic, you just have a piece of land you can't build on,” he continued.

The first shovels hit the ground earlier this month near the Brady Lake Road/state Route 59 intersection. Peetz said he expects the sewer project to be complete within a year, and then the property owners have another year to tie into them.