Akron seeks $295 million loan for sewer project, $3 million grant for recycling program
The city of Akron is applying for a $295 million loan to build a 16-foot-wide sewer tunnel and a $3 million grant to advance more cost efficient ways to recycle glass.
The proposals came through Akron Council Monday as residents demand ways to keep their costly glass recycling option, the city prepares to electrify its fleet of waste removal vehicles and public service staff wind down a massive, federally mandated sewer reconstruction project.
In 2014, Akron signed a consent decree with the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which sued the city over allowing sewage from the city’s combined sewer and storm water system to flow into the Cuyahoga River. A list of agreed upon projects, including upgrades at the water treatment facility, were designed to prevent overflows based on rainfall in a typical year.
This latest loan of $295 million, if approved, would bring the total that the city of Akron has borrowed through the Ohio Water Development Authority since 2014 to nearly $1 billion. This newest loan would cover the planning, design and construction costs for the Northside Interceptor Tunnel, one of the last projects.
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The city had tried to avoid drilling a northside tunnel after spending $184 million a few years ago to build the even larger 27-foot wide, 6,240-foot long Ohio Canalway Interceptor Tunnel under downtown.
“Our first direction in the integrated plan was let's not do another tunnel,” Public Service Director Chris Ludle told council Monday.
The city spent 2022 taking soil samples, measuring the thickness of bedrock and mapping out sewer flow rates to see if the stormwater and sewage system could be separated through North Hill instead channeled through one new, costly tunnel.
“They found that the escalation and cost to do a separation of this whole area and not do a tunnel would have been $364 million,” said Ludle.
Planning for the separation project was not a complete loss, though. The city used the knowledge gained to convince state and federal regulators to agree to a 16-foot Northside Interceptor Tunnel instead of the 24-foot wide tunnel in the original consent decree.
The tunnel, nonetheless, will cost more than the wider Ohio Canalway Interceptor Tunnel, which is roughly the same length at about 1.25 miles long.
To pay for the northside project project, the city is applying for another 45-year state loan with a current interest rate of 2.93%. That rate could be higher by August when the loan agreement is finalized if the Federal Reserve decides to increase interest rates on bonds.
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The first repayment on the $295 million loan, about $290 million of which the city expects to need for the project and the rest available just in case, would be scheduled for 2028 after the new tunnel is completed.
Akron Finance Director Steve Fricker estimated that the debt service on the new loan would cost Akron $12 million annually, increasing the pressure for a future administration to increase sewer rates for municipal customers or find another way to raise money.
Grant would boost glass and other recycling efforts
Emily Collins, strategic counsel to Mayor Dan Horrigan, said the city is seeking $3 million from the U.S. EPA’s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling grant program.
The grant, if awarded, would provide $450,000 for area and route optimization software with tablets that have front-facing cameras, $400,000 for electrical service that will allow for the electrification of the city's fleet of trucks, $1 million for standalone glass recycling infrastructure and $1,167,144 for public outreach and education.
The funds would provide more permanent infrastructure for a pilot program designed to reduce the cost of glass recycling, which other communities have dropped. Akron still allows residents to put glass in with other recyclables in what is known as single-stream recycling.
But, in the next few months, the city will set up five to seven drop-off locations so that residents can take their glass to designated areas to be separately recycled.
The drop-off locations would provide the city an avenue to avoid incurring huge costs for processing recycling loads contaminated by glass recyclables. Single-stream recycling currently costs the city $102 per ton, but if over 20% of the recycling load is contaminated by glass shards and other materials, the charge is $182 per ton.
“I can't wait until we can all celebrate the successful application and receive an implementation of this funding,” Ward 1 Councilwoman Nancy Holland said of the proposed grant. “I’m not sure what's personally more exciting to me: the ability to push forward the electrification of the fleet or glass recycling.”
Reach reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3792.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron seeks loan for sewer project, grant for glass recycling
