The design of a project that will bring sanitary sewer service to much of Yankee Lake and part of Masury is about 75 percent complete, said Gary Newbrough, deputy Trumbull County sanitary engineer.
“We are hoping to break ground, I would think, sometime around Oct. 1,” he said.
PRIME AE Group Inc.’s Akron office is designing the project and has gotten over the biggest hurdle, getting the sewer line from Yankee Lake Village through the woods to the intersection of Custer Orangeville and Yankee Run Road in Masury, he said.
“Multiple crews, many hours spent out there trying to find the optimum route,” Newbrough said. “There’s a lot of things to take into account.”
Those things to take into account included property lines, Yankee Creek – which the contractor will have to bore under – causing “the least amount of disturbance to the natural area,” and future access for maintenance activities, he said.
The project was brought on by an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency requirement that a wastewater treatment plant be built for Yankee Lake Ballroom, Newbrough said. Former Sen. Sean O’Brien secured an earmark in the state budget of $1.5 million for a project to extend county service to the village, which has an estimated construction cost of nearly $2.5 million.
The state grant was reduced to $1.35 million due to a revenue shortfall caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The complex funding scheme also includes a $500,000 Ohio Public Works Commission Grant, nearly $300,000 from the EPA Water Pollution Control Loan Fund, and about $320,000 from an Appalachian Regional Commission grant.
There still is a shortfall of about $150,000, and Newbrough said he probably will seek Community Development Block Grant funds to cover it.
The project will provide sanitary sewer service to a majority of the homes and all of the commercial properties in the village but, because of topography, will not reach anything north of Yankee Lake Inn, or on Amy Boyle Road west of the “big dropoff” that will prevent gravity flow eastward, he said.
Properties in the village will connect to the sewer line through gravity flow lines, which will converge at a pump station that will be built near the ballroom. The station will pump waste through a pressurized forcemain line  through the woods to Yankee Run Road.
“At the moment, we plan on picking up everyone on Yankee Run Road that currently does not have service,” Newbrough said. “We’re also gonna get south of the Warren Sharon Road intersection. We’ve got seven or eight houses on Brookfield Avenue that currently don’t have sewer, either.”
The waste will end up at the wastewater treatment plant on the northern end of Standard Avenue.
All told, 83 homes and three commercial buildings will be connected to the sewer system.
A public meeting will be held once all of the funding is secured and officials have a better estimate of costs to inform residents and business owners of what their sewer user fees will be, Newbrough said.