YOUNGSTOWN — A federal judge has ordered Youngstown to file an amended motion by Nov. 12 that seeks to amend its consent decree with the federal government to offer alternatives to a project city officials say would cost up to $240 million and it is not necessary.

Tuesday’s order from Christopher A. Boyko, a senior federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, comes after he held an attorney-only hearing on Monday.

Boyko also ordered Tuesday that both sides prepare a court briefing schedule by Nov. 12 for opposition to the amended motion — because the federal government is on the case against it — and respond, as well as any city objections to the request federal officials and additional questions. emailed on Monday.

The federal government also has until Nov. 12 to file a penalty motion.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked Youngstown for half of a $1,479,000 penalty, in a letter dated September 29, 2023, to be paid to the federal EPA because the city was “late” in pursuing water improvements used federally mandated for more than two years.

The city refused to pay. The other half — $739,500 — could be sought by the Ohio EPA, which has declined to do so.

Boyko’s court appearance is the first since the city and the federal government issued a joint status report on Aug. 13 that said they could not resolve their differences and asked a judge to resolve the matter.

The report stated that the “areas of disagreement” are “regarding the applicable performance standards for the proposed alternative control measures for the 100 million gallon per day wet weather facility.”

The US EPA wants the city to build a wet weather facility – a physical building that would be located near the wastewater treatment plant. The facility would treat excess combined sewage during heavy storms and then release the water.

The city insists the federally mandated wet weather facility is too expensive and there are less expensive alternatives.

The city is asking Boyko to reduce the scope of the work. The city reopened the 2014 consent agreement case on March 15 after failing to convince the federal government that the improvement work should be scaled back.

The federal government insists that the alternative to the wet weather facility “must achieve environmental benefits that are equal to or better than WWF,” according to a July 15 letter from Pedro Segura, an attorney with the federal DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Division.

The city’s position is that “the federal government’s proposed performance standards are not objective and are inconsistent with Youngstown’s long-term control plan and CSO (combined sewer discharge) policy,” according to the July 24 letter from Terrence S. Finn from Roetzel & Andress Law. Akron firm representing the city.

The city offered to build a storage tank, which would be smaller and less expensive than a wet weather facility, to hold the flow during a storm event and then release it back into the system as an option, another being a less expensive plant at the wastewater treatment plant to provide what it says is the same level of control.

The city has not disclosed the estimated cost of any alternative proposals.

Finn wrote in the July 24 letter that the federal plan “is significantly oversized for its purpose of controlling spills” and “that WWF is no longer a cost-effective control measure,” Finn wrote.

The state of Ohio, which is a stakeholder in the matter, is largely on the city’s side.

Ohio is “concerned that the limited expenditure of public dollars by Youngstown results in the construction of a cost-effective remedy,” Mark J. Navarre, Ohio’s assistant attorney general in its law enforcement division, wrote in a court filing from March 29.

The City Council voted in May to hire a consultant for $3 million for preliminary wet weather facility design work, specifically to analyze and develop control measures for a combined sewer overflow at the confluence of Crab Creek and the Mahoning River , near the city center.

The city says the cost of the wet weather facility project has increased from $62 million in 2002 to between $232.6 million and $240 million.

The city council on Aug. 28 approved a 5 percent annual wastewater rate increase for four years to pay for the long-term control plan, specifically design work and for debt service related to the projects.

The federal EPA originally ordered the city to do $310 million worth of work, but it was negotiated down to $160 million in 2014, with the expectation that it would take 20 years to complete.

The city tried to reduce that price even more, but the federal authorities refused those requests, which led to the reopening of the case.

The city also insists in court filings and interviews that if Youngstown complied with the mandates now, the cost would be about $380 million to $400 million — well more than double what it was agreed to do 10 years ago.

The first phase was the modernization of the city’s sewage treatment plant, which were completed.

The original construction estimate was $37.3 million, but the city said it cost $70 million.

That work helped reduce sewer overflows that would be part of the wet weather facility design, the city’s court filing states.

The wet weather facility was supposed to be the second phase of work and was scheduled to begin on February 7, 2022. Work has not begun, except that the city agreed in May to spend $3 million on pre-design work.

The city approved $4.8 million on March 15 for design work for the third phase. This phase is an interceptor sewer project to prevent wastewater from 13 lines from flowing into Glacier and Lake Cohasset in Mill Creek Park.

Design work was due to start on 11 July 2020 and construction was due to start on 5 April.

The city missed those deadlines, but is planning a compressed schedule and finishing the work 15 months earlier than the original deadline.

That phase was supposed to cost $47.7 million and will now cost between $72.5 million and $87.2 million, according to city estimates.