MOUNT VERNON — Representatives from ADR & Associates engineering firm in Newark spent two hours with the county commissioners Monday, reviewing details of the countywide hamlet wastewater treatment development program. The review was in advance of a public meeting to be held Monday evening in Millwood.

The project, which has developed and changed since its inception, currently plans to establish small sewer systems for the unincorporated hamlets of Mount Liberty, Brandon, Bladensburg, Millwood, Amity and Jelloway.

The current plan for the Millwood project is to connect it to the centralized system in Howard. To that end, commissioners president Bob Wise said he had sent a proposal to ConRail in New Jersey for the county to purchase the old railway between Howard and Millwood. ConRail’s board of directors only meets quarterly; its next meeting is Wednesday. The offer proposes that Knox County buy the abandoned railroad bed for $98,000, based on appraisals made for the county, providing that clear titles exist.

ADR project manager Jeffery Carr said this centralized option offered the advantage of being less invasive to property owners in Millwood than a separate, localized system.

Wise said that at the meeting, residents would have questions regarding odor at lift stations and manholes, but Carr said he was confident the volume of effluent going through the system would prevent it from turning septic. Plus, he added, adjustments to floats can help control the flow, preventing odor.

Commissioner Allen Stockberger said there may be some concerns with the value of land, in that some residents would rather be bought out than grant easements. Carr said he would stress in the meeting that if anyone in the community attempted to “cash in” on the project, it would just hurt everyone else in the community by raising the total cost.

Among the sewer systems proposed for the other hamlets, the plan for Amity is being developed, as the model for the rest of the program. Carr said that ADR was finishing up quality control inspection of the design and was preparing to send it to the Ohio EPA for final approval. Amity is one of several hamlets that may qualify for low-to-middle income status, making its project eligible for Community Development Block Grant funds. Bladensburg has qualified for that status, but Brandon did not.

Extensive discussion was also held about the potential for receiving funding through the Ohio Public Works Commission, which was originally established to replace old, worn-out infrastructure. Carr said he had a feeling that reconstruction projects would be given preference over new infrastructure projects at the OPWC, so he has doubts about receiving a grant.

Discussion continued regarding the Army Corps of Engineers’ allocated, but not appropriated, funds for infrastructure projects. Carr said he had been enlisting the aid of Ohio 18th District Rep. Zack Space in hopes of getting this grant. He said Space was fully aboard the project. Stockberger said it might also help for the commissioners to contact Ohio Sen. George Voinovich for aid in getting the funding.

Some aspects of the hamlet project were confirmed as being no longer part of the project. The proposed wastewater treatment system for residents surrounding Knox Lake has been taken up by the separate Fredericktown system. The system for the hamlet of Rich Hill may be incorporated into the new system being developed by Centerburg.

ADR suggested doing sample boring around Bladensburg and Millwood before determining the final nature of those systems. Determining the depth of soil, depth to water and depth to bedrock would all help in the design and planning of these systems, Carr said. Stockberger expressed boring reservations, noting that previous boring projects had not caught issues which ultimately raised costs. Stockberger questioned if boring was money well spent.

Carr said the bores would not be for soil strength for building, but merely more general to determine water table and bedrock level. He said such surveying would paint a picture of the underlying structure of the land, but that he couldn’t guarantee bores would catch every possible problem.

Discussion then turned to the upgrade of the Howard wastewater treatment system. Recent work on the system, including cleaning of sludge pits, has considerably reduced the outflow of copper, which had been accumulating in the sewer system from the deterioration of aging copper pipes in the older homes in the area. Effluent levels of copper last year peaked around 50 parts per billion, well above the new EPA maximum of 15 parts per billion. The latest readings have shown the outflow coming in around 10 parts per billion.

Moving the water treatment’s outlet point is also being planned, with the thought being that instead of releasing into Little Jelloway Creek, the outflow line could be extended a little farther to exit into the larger body of Jelloway Creek, thus diluting any potential pollution. Stockberger pointed out that it may be possible for the county to avoid further easements by having the effluent dump out at the Knox County Park System’s nearby Hellbender Preserve.