ASHLAND — A proposed sanitary sewer and water line infrastructure project in Loudonville was recently approved as the county’s top priority for Ohio Public Works Commission funding.
The Ashland County Board of Commissioners approved the priority list during a meeting at the end of October.
Ashland County is assigned to OPWC’s 16th District, which also includes Wayne, Richland, Crawford, Seneca, Wyandot, Marion and Hardin counties.
Each county accepts project applications from its cities, villages and/or townships and determines which to submit as the county’s priority projects to the District 16 Integrating Committee for OPWC funding.
A scoring system helps the county rank the projects, said county Engineer Ed Meixner. The county is also responsible for rating each project submission.
“You have the opportunity to rate those and rank those according to what we believe is the needs of the county versus the score they get,” he said.
Typically, the county receives about five or six project applications, Meixner said, but this year it only received two. Only two or three projects at a time usually receive funding, depending on the amount requested.
He said Ashland County is typically successful in getting one or two projects funded annually through OPWC.
The village of Loudonville submitted a sanitary sewer and water line project along North Water Street, Humm Avenue and Rose Court. It will involve replacing approximately 850 feet of eight-inch sanitary sewer and sewer laterals, as well as a water line improvement replacing 1,100 linear feet of six-inch water line.
The estimated project cost is $924,000. Loudonville is requesting $462,000 in OPWC funding.
Loudonville’s proposed project scored 49 points, said Meixner, who recommended it as the county’s top priority.
How does project scoring work?
Scoring a submitted projects involves multiple categories, Meixner said. The following factors are weighed when scoring a project:
- A repair or replacement project. (OPWC funding is not intended to create new infrastructure, rather to repair or replace existing, Meixner said.)
- A district need. (Whether or not the district feels its important.)
- Job creation.
- Age (of infrastructure).
- Life expectancy. (For example, a pavement project would not score as well as a bridge project, Meixner said.)
- Health and safety.
- If a project requests a loan, points can be received for that ask.
- Has to be $500,000 or less (the funding request), otherwise 10 points are deducted.
- How much local share will be included in the project. The more a community puts toward the project, the more points the project receives.
- Ready to proceed. (Is the project ready to be started?)
- Median household income.
- User fee. (If the project includes an element where a user fee is applied, it scores points, like utilities for example.)
The second project was submitted by the Lorain County Rural Wastewater District, which operates a sewer treatment plant in Cinnamon Lake — a private, gated community in Jackson Township.
Since the wastewater district operates in a portion of Ashland County, it’s eligible to apply through the county, Meixner said.
“They intend to build a 30-by-30 foot building that’s going to be constructed over the top of the existing lift station,” he said.
“Half of the building will protect the screening unit from freezing and allow the backwash system to be reinstalled. The other half of the building will serve as storage for spare pumps,” the engineer said.
The estimated project cost is $584,000. The wastewater district is requesting $250,000 in grant funding and a $250,000 loan from OPWC.
This project scored 44 points, said Meixner, who said the maximum a project can score is around 65 to 70 points. A project needs to score at least 40 points to get funded, generally speaking, he said.
$13.6 million available to eight counties in District 16
Both projects will be submitted to District 16, where they’ll be scored and compared at the district level.
Meixner said each district has a certain amount of funds made available to them. District 16 has $13.6 million to spread between projects in its eight counties.
He estimated around 30 or 40 projects total will receive funding between the eight counties this year.
That funding is distributed through a variety of methods, including the local transportation improvement program, capital improvement grants and the revolving loan program.
Of District 16’s $13.6 million available, $2.6 million is available in local transportation improvement program funds, $8.9 million in capital improvement grants and $2 million in revolving loans.
The maximum funding request for a project in District 16 is $500,000 per project, Meixner said. A project loses 10 points on its score if the request exceeds that amount.
“The reason why they do that is they believe it’s important that whoever’s asking for the money have skin in the game, that they provide money and the point system is set up for that,” he said.
