Minster, Celina to receive total $3.2M in grants

Nearly $3.2 million in grants have been awarded to local municipalities as part of the final round of the Ohio BUILDS water infrastructure grant program, which was funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

The village of Minster will receive a $2.5 million grant to build a new 1.25-million-gallon water tower and the city of Celina will receive $680,000 to replace a failing water line, according to an announcement made by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on Wednesday.

Minster officials will apply the $2.5 million toward the construction of a 1.25-million-gallon water tower off Seventh Street, said village administrator Don Harrod. The total project is estimated at $3.75 million. The remaining cost would be paid through the water fund, Harrod said.

The new tower is necessary to meet pressure, water age and fire flow needs in the village, state documents read. It would replace the existing 250,000-gallon Ohio Street storage tank that dates back to 1949.

Harrod said city officials have discussed replacing the tower for about a year.

"It's pretty urgent," he said. "Our water tower actually has had about three or four leaks that we've had to repair since that point in time, and we brought in a company that identified about 40 spots on the water tower where the metal was getting thin that could possibly leak in the future."

Harrod said officials are in the engineering process, and drawings are about 60% complete. They should be finished in the next month or so, at which point the project could be bid out.

An exact project timeline is unclear.

"There's only about three or four contractors in the United States that build water towers. So we've just got to get on their schedule and see what happens," he said.

The new tower would boost total storage volume within Minster from 1.25 million gallons to 2 million gallons.

"That should accommodate any future growth, from residential, commercial or industrial, including Dannon," Harrod said.

Celina officials will apply the $680,000 grant toward the replacement of Echo Street in the southwest part of the city, mayor Jeff Hazel said. The city also will use the grant money to "install new water valves and fire hydrants and replace existing water services up to the right-of-way line," according to state documents.

"If lead water service lines that go to a residence are discovered, the city will assist the homeowner in coordinating their replacement," the state document reads. "These replacements will provide residents of the project area with a safe and reliable water distribution system. The additional fire flow capabilities will allow for more effective fire suppression."

In keeping with the city's street reconstruction policy, officials plan to replace the water line in 2022 and reconstruct the street in 2023 with city street funds, Hazel said.

"We're thrilled with the (grant) because that is really going to help us make some significant headway in some of the older water lines in the southwest district. We've done a number of replacements already," he said.

Under previous rounds of Ohio BUILDS water infrastructure grant funding, the village of New Bremen was awarded $685,000 and the village of Rockford received $850,000.

New Bremen will use their funds to dredge sludge from its wastewater lagoons, part of a plan to come into compliance with new requirements in the village's Ohio Environmental Protection Agency wastewater discharge permit.

The total cost of the sludge reduction project is $798,000, said village administrator Brent Richter. The village will pay for the rest of the project. The dredging is expected to be completed in the summer of 2022, he said.

Rockford will use their funds to build a new water tower that will replace the existing one, which is almost 80 years old according to officials. The current tower experiences multiple issues, including leaks.

In total, approximately $250 million in Ohio BUILDS grant funding is going toward 183 critical water infrastructure projects across the state, according to a news release.

"Clean drinking water is part of the foundation for a good quality of life, yet too many communities in Ohio can't reliably provide residents with this basic necessity due to crumbling infrastructure that has been too expensive to fix," DeWine said in the news release. "My administration is committed to helping our communities address these important water issues, and we look forward to additional conversations with the Ohio General Assembly about the potential of expanding this program with additional funds."

DeWine created the Ohio BUILDS water infrastructure grant program to reduce or eliminate the local financial burden associated with critical infrastructure needs. Grants also are funding projects to prevent sewer system backups and replace failing household sewage treatment systems with new sewers, according to the release.