The county has completed a water main on state Route 44 between Mantua and Shalersville, but what’s underground is only part of the story.
The Village of Mantua once operated its own water treatment plant. It was built to produce more water than its customers use even now, but at some point Mantua found itself unable to meet EPA guidelines. The county assumed control in 2021.
That water main is intended to act as an emergency connection between Mantua’s system and the county’s, said county Water Resources Director Dan Blakely, but the pipe cannot be brought online until the county completes another water tower, hopefully near the Shalersville turnpike interchange.
Negotiations with the Ohio Turnpike Commission are ongoing, he said. A representative at the Turnpike Commission confirmed that the OTC is negotiating with the county for a possible easement on turnpike property at Toll Plaza 193 (the Shalerville interchange) “for the county’s future water tower.”
“People thought when the emergency connection was built that we would immediately be able to use it, which unfortunately was not the case, until that tower is built. There’s too much of a pressure difference between Mantua and Shalersville for us to just open up a valve. It just wouldn’t work that way,” Blakely said.
A water hydraulics lesson: Water pressure for homes and businesses is dictated by the height of the water column, meaning the water tower. Higher towers translate to higher water pressure, but elevation, both of the tower and the recipients, also play key roles, Blakely said. The trick is to find just the right height for the water tower so water pressure is optimized for folks near and far.
Simply put, the turnpike commission has the highest available elevation, so pumping water from the Mantua water treatment plant to the proposed Shalersville tower would enhance the township’s water pressure and provide firefighters with more of what they need. Right now, the massive Geis development is only being served by the Shalersville water treatment plant, Blakely said.
Ultimately, the county would like to connect the village and county water systems for more than just emergency use. The county’s four water treatment plants — in Brimfield, Shalersville, Mantua and the Suffield area — are all fed by wells, which could go bad or dry, Blakely said.
The Brimfield and Shalersille plants support some 90% of the county’s 4,200 water customers, all of whom would benefit from a third system — Mantua’s — providing a buffer in case of any unforeseen event, he explained.
(The fourth system, called Rivermoor, in the Suffield area, only serves about 240 customers and is unlikely to be brought into the greater mix, he said.)
Back to geography and hydraulics, Portage County style: Mantua is at a much higher elevation than Shalersville.
“We need to have a water storage tank to stabilize the water pressure in the Village of Mantua and the township area, as well. Then we could begin the process of mixing those two water systems,” Blakely said.
The higher the tower, the better it will work. That could bring the Crestwood Local Schools into play because it has some of the highest land in the area.
During its Jan. 14 meeting, the Crestwood Board of Education voted 3-2 to enter into negotiations with the county water resources department. Nay votes came from Kristen Cavanaugh and Bonnie Lovejoy, who expressed concern about what they said is the county’s failure to provide sufficient information.
The board voiced its intention to consult with the district’s attorneys for additional guidance.
There’s more. The century-old pipes in the area are not rated to handle additional water pressure, and no one, least of all Blakely, wants to be confronted with multiple leaks.
That means the entire water distribution system must be rebuilt: the underground water mains, the fire hydrants and the network of valves that allow specific portions of the pipeline to be shut off when needed.
“If we build the tower too soon, the additional water pressure from the water tower would cause mass water breaks all over the place. So we’re trying to time it so that we can build the water tower, and then all the water mains withstand the water pressure of a water tower coming online without water breaks,” he said.
The county is now in the first of three stages of that plan, which Blakely expects will take about five years to complete.
A final part of the project has to do with the Ohio EPA’s insistence that lead, which may or not be present in those underground pipes, must be removed.
“Back in the early 1900s, leading up until about World War II, they would use goosenecks, essentially a piece of lead pipe that would connect from the water main to the service line [that runs to homes and businesses] because it was easy to bend and you could move it around,” he said.
Even if lead goosenecks are present locally, the debacle that left Flint, Michigan’s water undrinkable is not likely to be an issue here, Blakely said. Flint’s decision to change the pH of the water stripped off a coating that adheres to the inside of service lines, leaving the lead exposed.
“We don’t have that pH situation,” he said. “Mantua is really the only area where we’re concerned there might be lead just because of the age of the system, but that’s why we’re going to mitigate that by changing all of the service lines. I would say probably 90% of the service lines will be replaced.”
Exempt would be homeowners or businesses that can prove they’ve replaced their old service lines with copper or PVC, he said.
The county will pay for the replacements, but expects to be reimbursed. Ultimately all of Mantua’s village and township water customers — even the ones who have replaced their service lines — are paying for the upgrades through 20-year surcharges that are already appearing on their bills. That includes people and business with septic systems and wells, as long as they are within agreed-upon distances from county systems, Blakely said.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.