12-12-02: Developer for Wal-Mart store to give city $30,000

12-12-02: Developer for Wal-Mart store to give city $30,000

By SEAN RICE
The Daily Standard

    RG Properties, the Columbus company committed to constructing a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Celina, has agreed to furnish the city with $30,000 to assist with bringing water and sewer to the Havemann Road site.
    Celina Safety-Service Director Mike Sovinski gave members of the utilities committee the update at an afternoon meeting Wednesday, and also filled them in on the latest on the city's situation with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
    Sovinski said two water lines and a sewer line will be installed under Havemann Road, coming from the direction of the current Wal-Mart. That work will occur before work gets underway for the complete road reconstruction and widening project beginning next year, paid for by nearly $1 million in grant money.
    Finding a solution to the city's drinking water problems will cost the city approximately $100,000 to $150,000 in engineering costs alone, Sovinski told the committee.
    City officials and the Ohio EPA are continuously in contact regarding actions on the city's "findings and orders" from the state agency.
    Ohio EPA issued the city findings and orders for failing to keep trihalomethane (THM) levels in drinking water within the legal limits on numerous occasions for several years. THMs are believed to cause certain types of cancer during a lifetime of exposure.
    The committee learned Wednesday that the ozone generator at the Celina Water Treatment Plant has not worked properly since it was installed more than five years ago. While the device does manage taste and odor problems with the water, the ozone is not being diffused into the water to the fullest extent.
    Sovinski said the system can be modified to work better and it may reduce the THM levels in the water, which may buy the city a couple years before diving into a new plant.
    Sovinski said the EPA may allow the minor modification, because the water quality will actually be improved while the city spends three years planning and possibly building a new plant. Without the change, city water will remain degraded during the entire planning-construction process.
    On a low note, Sovinski is no longer certain the $20,000 fine attached to the findings and orders can be negotiated out of the citation, but he is still in discussion with the EPA, he said.

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