YOUNGSTOWN — In its ongoing legal battle with the federal government over agreed-upon wastewater improvement work, Youngstown is proposing a smaller and presumably less expensive alternative project.

As part of a 2014 consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the city agreed to build a 100-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility — a physical building that would be located near its wastewater treatment plant. The facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy rainstorms and then release the water.

The city now insists the facility mandated by the federal government is too large and expensive.

The project’s initial estimate was $62 million, but is now more than $240 million, according to a Tuesday federal court filing from Terrence S. Finn of the Roetzel & Andress law firm in Akron, which represents the city.

The city is asking Judge Christopher A. Boyko with the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of Ohio to permit the consent decree to be amended for the construction of a wet weather facility that could treat 80 million gallons of wastewater per day.

The court filings don’t disclose the projected cost of the smaller facility.

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said Youngstown is not at the point where it can give a cost projection.

The 80-million gallon facility was “selected after a thorough analysis involving five other viable control measures,” the filing states.

The federal government, which has refused to accept a reduction in the scope of the work, 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 Department of Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Section.

In a separate Tuesday filing, Finn wrote the city objects to the federal government’s request for additional analysis of options raised in an Oct. 25 letter as it is unnecessary and the city already provided similar information sought in a July 16 letter.

“In its recent request for an additional analysis, the United States is asking Youngstown to evaluate a control measure that is not suitably tailored to the changed circumstances,” Finn wrote.

“Now, the United States is asking for more. In doing so, the United States seeks to benefit from its own failure to identify an objective performance standard.”

The dispute led the city to reopen the 2014 consent agreement case March 15.

“The volume and number of overflows that were predicted in the 2014 (long term control plan) and formed the basis for selecting the WWF are now substantially less based upon a far more accurate, updated and recalibrated hydraulic model,” Finn wrote in a Tuesday court filing.

Also, Finn wrote, the city voluntarily increased its wastewater control projects, and there has been a 25.5% reduction in overflows from when they were originally tested between 1981 and 1985 to this year.

Among the voluntary improvements was expanding the city’s wastewater treatment plant from the required 80 million gallons per day to 90 million gallons per day, Finn wrote.

Federal officials point out work to the wet weather facility was to start Feb. 7, 2022, and “finalize design” work was to be done by July 29. The work hasn’t begun, except the city agreeing in May to spend $3 million on predesign work.

A schedule attached with Finn’s latest court filing shows the wet weather facility would be finished by Sept. 7, 2030.

Finn also wrote the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency approves of the city’s proposal to substitute the 100-million-gallon facility with an 80-million-gallon one, but “wants Youngstown to obtain additional flow data to further validate the model. Youngstown has agreed to do so.”

The DOJ repeated its demand Tuesday for half of a $1.4 million penalty from Youngstown to be paid to the U.S. EPA because the city “defaulted” on following through with federally mandated wastewater improvements. Segura first brought up the penalty in a Sept. 29, 2023, letter.

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

The U.S. EPA 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.

The schedule attached to Finn’s latest filing has the work done by Oct. 1, 2035.

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. 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 the second phase of the work.

The city approved $4.8 million 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 to finish the work 15 months earlier than the initial timeline. The city’s schedule has that work finished by Oct. 16, 2032.

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