YOUNGSTOWN — A federal judge ordered Youngstown to submit by Nov. 12 an amended motion seeking to modify its consent decree with the federal government to provide alternatives to a project city officials say would cost up to $240 million and isn’t needed.

The Tuesday order from Christopher A. Boyko, a senior federal judge with the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Ohio, comes after he held a Monday attorneys-only hearing.

Boyko also ordered Tuesday that both sides prepare a court briefing schedule by Nov. 12 for opposition to the amended motion — as the federal government is on record against it — and replies as well as any city objections to the federal officials’ request and additional questions submitted Monday by email.

Also, the federal government has until Nov. 12 to file a motion for penalties.

The U.S. Department of Justice demanded half of a $1,479,000 penalty from Youngstown in a Sept. 29, 2023, letter to be paid to the federal EPA because the city “defaulted” on following through with federally mandated wastewater improvements for more than two years.

The city has refused to pay. The other half — $739,500 — could be sought by the Ohio EPA, which has declined to do so.

Boyko’s court entry is the first since the city and the federal government issued an Aug. 13 joint status report that they couldn’t resolve their differences and asked the judge to resolve the matter.

The report stated the “areas of disagreement” are “regarding the applicable performance standards for the proposed alternative control measures to the 100 million gallon a day wet weather facility.”

The U.S. EPA wants the city to build a wet weather facility — a physical building that would be located near the wastewater treatment plant. The facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

The city insists the wet weather facility mandated by the federal government is too expensive, and there are less expensive alternatives.

The city is asking Boyko to reduce the scope of the work. The city reopened the 2014 consent agreement case on March 15 after failing to convince the federal government that the improvement work needs to be reduced.

The federal government insists the alternative to the wet weather facility “must achieve environmental benefits that are equal to or better than the WWF,” according to a July 15 letter from Pedro Segura, an attorney with the federal DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section.

The city’s position is the federal government’s “proposed performance standards are not objective and are inconsistent with Youngstown’s long term control plan and CSO (combined sewer overflows) policy,” according to the July 24 letter from Terrence S. Finn of the Roetzel & Andress law firm in Akron, which is representing the city.

The city has offered to build a storage bin, which would be smaller and less expensive than a wet weather facility, to hold flow during a storm event and then release it back into the system as one option with another being a less expensive facility at the wastewater treatment plant to provide what it says is the same level of control.

The city hasn’t disclosed the estimated cost of any alternative proposals.

Finn wrote in the July 24 letter that the federal plan “is significantly oversized for its intended purpose of controlling the overflows” and “that the WWF is no longer a cost-effective control measure,” Finn wrote.

The state of Ohio, which is an interested party in this issue, largely sides with the city.

Ohio is “concerned that Youngstown’s expenditure of limited public dollars results in the construction of a cost-effective remedy,” wrote Mark J. Navarre, an assistant Ohio attorney general in its environmental enforcement section, in a March 29 court filing.

City council voted in May to hire a consultant for $3 million for preliminary design work on the wet weather facility, specifically to analyze and develop control measures for a combined sewer overflow at the confluence of Crab Creek and the Mahoning River near downtown.

The city says the cost of the wet weather facility project increased from $62 million in 2002 to between $232.6 million and $240 million.

City council on Aug. 28 approved a 5% annual wastewater rate increase for four years to pay for the long term control plan, specifically design work and for debt service related to the projects.

The federal EPA had originally ordered the city in 2002 to do $310 million worth of work, but it was negotiated down to $160 million in 2014 with the expectation it would be finished in 20 years.

The city has tried to get that price down further, but federal authorities have refused those requests, resulting in the reopened court case.

Also, the city insists in court filings and interviews that if Youngstown complied with the mandates now the cost would be about $380 million to $400 million — well over twice what it agreed to do 10 years ago.

The first phase was upgrades to the city’s wastewater treatment plant that have been completed.

The initial construction estimate was $37.3 million, but the city said it cost $70 million.

That work helped reduce the sewer overflows that would be part of the wet weather facility project, the city’s court filing states.

The wet weather facility was supposed to be phase two of the work and was required to start Feb. 7, 2022. The work hasn’t begun, except the city agreeing in May to spend $3 million on pre-design work.

The city approved $4.8 million on March 15 for design work for the third phase. That phase is an interceptor sewer project to keep wastewater from 13 lines from flowing into Mill Creek Park’s Lake Glacier and Lake Cohasset.

Design work was supposed to start July 11, 2020, and construction was to begin this April 5.

The city missed those deadlines, but plans a compressed schedule and finish the work 15 months earlier than the initial time line.

That phase was supposed to cost $47.7 million and will now cost $72.5 million to $87.2 million, according to city estimates.