Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted today announced the first round of water infrastructure grant funding awarded as part of a new, statewide initiative to help build a stronger foundation for improved quality of life for Ohio’s families and continued economic growth for Ohio’s communities.
Today’s announcement includes the following projects in the Buckeye Hills region of southeast Ohio:
- Washington County Board of Commissioners (House District 95- Rep. Don Jones, Senate District 30 -Senator Frank Hoagland) will receive a $10 million grant for the Devola Sanitary Sewer Improvements Phase II project. This project complies with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director’s Final Findings and Orders (DFFO) and will extend sewers to 550 homes within the DFFO boundary. This project will benefit 2,702 people.
- Syracuse Racine Regional Sewer District (Meigs County, House District 94- Rep. Jay Edwards, Senate District 30- Senator Frank Hoagland) will receive a $1.4 million grant to install a headworks-screening system to eliminate debris clogging up the sewer system. The project will benefit 1,850 people.
- Crooksville (Perry County, House District 72- Rep. Kevin Miller, Senate District 31- Senator Jay Hottinger) will receive a $1.87 million grant to replace two main critical lift stations within the village’s sanitary sewer system that provide basic sanitary sewer service to area residents. Both stations are experiencing severe corrosion and infiltration and are near the end of their useful lives. The project will benefit 2,534 people.
- Tuppers Plains-Chester (Athens County, House District 94- Rep. Jay Edwards, Senate District 30- Senator Frank Hoagland) will receive a $90,000 grant for the planning and engineering design of a project that will extend a water line on South Rodehaver Road and Young Road. The project will help replace current cisterns and wells for area residents that have tested positive for Total Coliform or E. coli and provide a clean, safe drinking water source for 43 people.
- Barnesville (Belmont, Guernsey, Monroe, and Noble counties, House District 95- Rep. Don Jones, Senate District 30- Sen. Frank Hoagland)) will receive $2.257 million to replace approximately 25,000 linear feet of waterline and construct a new pump station. The new raw water main will replace an asbestos 12-inch line installed in 1963, which provides raw water from the Slope Creek Reservoir to the Barnesville Water Treatment Plant. The original construction material and obvious deterioration over nearly 60 years have resulted in an estimated 25-30 percent of currently pumped water lost due to leaks. The village of Barnesville provides water to its own community, plus eight other communities in rural areas of Belmont, Monroe, Guernsey, and Noble counties. Replacement of the waterline is needed to sustain the estimated 3,683 service connections, of which approximately 153 of those are businesses.
- Burr Oak Regional Water District (Morgan County, House District 78- Rep. Brian Stewart, Senate District 20- Senator Tim Schaffer) will receive a $1.9 million grant for an expansion project to address an area in Morgan County with contaminated and inadequate water supplies. The project will include approximately 100,000 feet of new waterlines. This project will benefit 300 people.
A total of $250 million in grant funding will be invested in water infrastructure projects as part of the new Ohio BUILDS initiative. The first round of water infrastructure grants announced today awards $93 million to 54 projects that impact communities in 60 Ohio counties. The remainder of the water infrastructure grants will be awarded in the coming weeks and will ultimately impact communities in every county in Ohio.
Funds awarded today will help reduce or eliminate the local financial burden associated with critical infrastructure needs such as the construction of new water systems, the replacement of aging water lines, and the installation new water mains. Grants will also fund projects to prevent sewer system backups and replace failing household sewage treatment systems with new sewers.
“These grants are about strengthening our future, our people, and our communities,” said Governor DeWine. “We want our kids and grandkids to stay in Ohio, and clean water is essential to the health and future of our state. Protecting and ensuring that every community in Ohio has access to safe and clean water has been our mission from the start, and with these grants, we are continuing our mission to provide access to economic development tools that will help communities grow and thrive well into the future.”
The new Ohio BUILDS water infrastructure grants are a continuation of Governor DeWine’s H2Ohio initiative, which launched in 2019 to focus on ensuring plentiful, clean, and safe water for communities across the state. In addition to investing in strategies to reduce algal blooms on Lake Erie and other bodies of water statewide, H2Ohio has also awarded $15 million in grants for water infrastructure projects.
Ohio BUILDS (Broadband, Utilities, and Infrastructure for Local Development Success) will focus not only on strengthening Ohio’s communities through water infrastructure upgrades, but it will also make other necessary investments in targeted solutions that impact quality of life such as broadband expansion, brownfield redevelopment, the demolition of blighted buildings, and more.
The Ohio BUILDS water infrastructure grants announced today were funded by the Ohio General Assembly as part of House Bill 168, with funding that was appropriated through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Ohio BUILDS grant programs for broadband expansion, blighted building demolition, and brownfield redevelopment are funded in Ohio’s current operating budget.
Additional announcements regarding Ohio BUILDS projects that will strategically invest to transform lives and strengthen Ohio’s future will be made in the coming months.