WELLSVILLE - Following an executive session with Buckeye Water District solicitor Fred Emmerling, BWD trustees approved a resolution accepting an indemnification agreement between the district and the Columbiana County Board of Commissioners, as well as a promissory note of $1.5 million from the district to county commissioners at their monthly meeting Thursday morning.
The note is for repayment of the $1.5 million that commissioners put up in May 2012 to help BWD resolve a breach of contract lawsuit from the City of East Liverpool, which was finally settled on Jan. 24 after nearly eight years in court.
According to Emmerling, the note stipulates payment of the sum within five years.
Trustees also officially approved the settlement agreement between the district and East Liverpool ending the legal action between the two entities.
Emmerling said county commissioners have already reviewed the indemnification agreement and promissory note, and agreed with the settlement terms. "There are still some matters as far as exact wording that we're trying to work out without the necessity of having to go back to court to enforce it," Emmerling said. Beyond those semantical issues, he says BWD is ready to fulfill the terms agreed to before Judge C. Ashley Pike in January.
The board voted to approve an agreement for the the sale of raw, untreated water to Chesapeake Energy at BWD's current bulk rate of $5 per thousand gallons. According to district manager Al DeAngelis, the agreement states that Chesapeake will pay all costs associated with necessary retrofits to the district's treatment facility on state Route 45, where Chesapeake's trucks will pick up the raw water from the reservoir.
Chesapeake previously purchased treated water from BWD last year at the potable bulk rate of $15 per thousand gallons. DeAngelis says Chesapeake will use the same access road to the facility as last time.
In his report to the board, DeAngelis announced that the district's planned water-line extension project to Duke Road has been approved for a $150,000 grant by the Ohio Public Works Commission. An additional $150,000 request has been made to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for a Community Development Block Grant for the project.
The next scheduled meeting of the Buckeye Water District Board of Trustees is at 9 a.m. Thursday, April 18, in council chambers at Wellsville Village Hall.
