SULPHUR SPRINGS—On Tuesday evening, county commissioners Tim Ley, Larry Schmidt, and Doug Weisenauer met with the Liberty Township trustees.
At the meeting, the county commissioners presented the trustees with their plans to take city water from Stetzer at Beechgrove all the way to 602, then 330 that would fall partly under their jurisdiction.
In an effort to bring water to the citizens of Sulphur, the trustees proposed that the commissioners use some of the money they received from the ARP (American Rescue Plan of 2021) to tie into the Northern Ohio Rural Waterline at the intersection of Ridgeton Annapolis Road and Henry Cooper Road and bring water south into Sulphur.
Back in 2018, the township trustees met with legal counsel to hear about their options for getting water into Sulphur when the Bucyrus City Council approved a resolution that would allow the city to take over the legal side of the county’s sewer district, but no action was ever taken on either side.
The ARP, is a COVID-19 stimulus package, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11 of this year in order to speed up the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to wacities.org, the county commissioners are allowed to use the money to support public health expenditures; address the negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency; replace lost public sector revenue; provide premium pay for essential workers; and invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure. The county commissioners must also use the money received across the county, not just in one area. Cities have until December 31 of 2024 to obligate funds and until December 31 of 2026 to spend the funds.
While the Sulphur Springs trustees have received money from the ARP fund, they are asking the commissioners to pledge some of the money they received to help them bring water throughout the county through Northern Ohio Rural Water so that if something falls through with the city water again, all of the commissioner’s money is not in one place, leaving Sulphur high and dry once again.
“You buy gas from a gas station, not your neighbor, so it makes sense to me that we buy our water from a water agency rather than a city,” township trustee Jamie Sherk said.
The commissioners were going to look into the matter and get back with the trustees on the subject.
The commissioners are not only looking to bring water to Sulphur but also have plans to take it to other parts of the county as well.