St. C. leaders question water tank permit status
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ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- Plans to "mothball" the 4-year-old, 500,000-gallon water tank at St. Clair Commons have been delayed due to the tank's permit status.
City officials have questions about the situation and the installing engineer, W.E. Quicksall & Associates, has responded.
In mid-July, City Council decided to discontinue use of the tank, following a notice of violation from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency indicating the tank was built at an insufficient elevation. Safety and Service Director Jeremy Greenwood also reported that the city has been unable to easily fill the tank and make full use of it due to its placement.
Since then, however, Greenwood has described the status of the tank as "in limbo." It has not yet been disconnected from the city distribution system. He elaborated during and after a council meeting Tuesday.
"We've got the notice of violation because the permit wasn't installed," he said. "I've had details to take it offline."
Greenwood said the operation was first delayed due to the planned cleaning of the city's older tanks and completing a separate project of running a waterline from the water treatment plant beneath Interstate 70.
Since then, Greenwood said Quicksall has indicated it is submitting to the OEPA for a permit.
"I don't know if them submitting for a permit will satisfy the (notice of violation) and I don't have to take it offline," he said, adding that he is reaching out to the OEPA. Greenwood added that he did not understand how Quicksall could now be seeking a permit for a 4-year-old tank. He said his office has no records of a permit for the tank to be installed at its current location.
"I've never been able to find anything on this," he said. "(The OEPA) sent me the information for the permit when it was on top of the hill, and there was nothing we found for when it moved down the hill. ... I'm going by what the EPA said when they sent the notice of violation, that there was no permit for this installed where it's at. How the decision was made and what was going on, I don't know. It was before my time here."
Greenwood took the position of Safety and Service Director in 2020.
Don Quicksall, president of W.E. Quicksall & Associates, was later contacted.
"We did receive the permit to install September of 2017. It was decided in January of 2018 to look at another location because of the price and the soil issues at the location where the (permit to to install) was obtained, so we moved it down the hill to its present location, about 40 feet lower," Quicksall said.
He said the firm had asked the OEPA if it needed to resubmit the permit to install, since a "substantial change in the project" would require Quicksall to resubmit. He said the company was told so long as the "full scope" of the project did not change, this would not be necessary.
"Our engineer — rightly or wrongly — he took that, because the type of work didn't change, other than the different location. It was still a 500,000-gallon tank with a booster station, and it had the generator. Those were all the primary parts to the project, and none of that changed," he said. "We took it that we didn't need to resubmit."
Quicksall said he took measures to address the situation when he learned St. Clairsville had received a notice from the OEPA that the permit to install was not at the location where the tank now sits.
"I immediately called EPA," he said. "We weren't trying to be deceptive. We weren't trying to hide anything. We were under the impression in our discussions that it wouldn't be needed. I said: 'I want to do anything we can, right away, to get that off the table.'"
Quicksall said the firm has submitted for a permit and that St. Clairsville must approve it.
"We've sent the title sheet down to (St. Clairsville) to authorize the resubmission, and we've not yet received that from them, so we can't submit until we get that," he said. "We're ready to submit all documentation to get that resolved."
Anthony Chenault, media coordinator with the Ohio EPA, responded to an emailed inquiry.
"The current tank was not installed at the elevation stated in the (documents) that were submitted to Ohio EPA and approved in 2017. A Notice of Violation was sent to St. Clairsville regarding the installation of the current tank because it was installed at a lower elevation than originally planned. Quicksall is submitting a revised plan to seek approval at the current location, as constructed."
Meanwhile, Greenwood said the city is awaiting word from the OEPA before the final disposition of the tank.
"I've got details to disconnect it, I just haven't pulled the trigger because I'm waiting for them to make a decision," he said.
"If we mothball it, it's going to cost us money to get in there, disconnect it and go through it," he said, adding that should the city later decide to reconnect and try to make use of the tank, it would need to be filled with chlorinated water to clean and disinfect it, then refilled again. "So you're talking 1 million gallons of water."
The tank was constructed in anticipation of future development at St. Clair Commons, which has not materialized. The total cost of the tank was $2.2 million, using loan money that the city will have to repay over the next 30 years.
In answer to a question from Councilwoman Beth Oprisch, Greenwood said the city would continue to pursue legal remedies. He said he could not elaborate further.