CANTON LOOKING TO LEVERAGE WATER INTO A MERGER WITH CANTON TOWNSHIP?

VIDEOS

Canton Councilman Bill Smuckler

"Whatever Happened to Annexation for Those Wanting Canton Water?"

----------

Canton Council Ponders/Passes Ordinance to Provide Canton Twp Water

----------

Canton Township Trustee Chris Nichols

No Canton Township/Canton Merger

..........

Canton + Canton Township = "New Canton, Ohio?"

After all, Canton Township virtually encircles Canton.

"Not in my lifetime, but perhaps decades down the road," says Canton director of annexation Sam Sliman who appeared at a Stark County commissioners meeting about five years ago or so and proudly attributed to himself as being the "Darth Vader of Annexation."

Probably a couple of decades ago, Canton water for Canton Township became a hot topic as a lone wolf township activist approached Canton officials about the prospect of Canton constructing a pipeline into the township and selling water to its residents.

At that time, there was a great push in Canton that water came at a price.

Price?

Indeed:  "ANNEXATION!!!"

Eventually, the whole notion of a Canton/Canton Township nexus on the leverage of "water for all" fell apart.

So what brings the issue of Canton water for Canton Township into view again?

Here's what.  An ordinance on the agenda of Canton City Council:

What's more is this Councilman-at-Large William Smuckler observation during Canton City Council's work session preceding its July 17th council meeting at which the matter was debated and passed by a 9 to 2 margin.  Councilman Smuckler and Ward 5 councilman Fisher voted "no."

Here is Smuckler's work session comments:



During council's regular meeting of the 17th, Canton water superintendent Tyler Converse explained why it was in Canton's interest to take advantage of the economies of doing the design work now so as to be prepared for Canton and its abundant water supplies to work out an agreement with Canton Township residents (short of annexation) to provide water to them.

Note: (regular meeting video picks up after Smuckler "work session" query)



Over the years since Canton Township water acquisition discussion first began under the Dick Watkins administration (1992-2003), the township has edged itself into getting Canton water for about 50% of its residences/businesses all without falling into the clutches of Sam Sliman—the self-described Darth Vader of Annexation vis-a-vis surrounding townships.

But make no mistake about it.

Canton Township has no interest whatsoever in merging into Canton.

Watch this Stark County Political Report interview of township trustee Chris Nichols as he says that while he and former fellow Canton Township trustee Bill Smith (a Stark County commissioner as of January 1, 2017) ran, in part, campaigns for township trustee on a model of inter-governmental cooperation, the answer to Canton Township merging into Canton is absolutely a "no!"



The SCPR does think that Sam Sliman may turn out to have been a seer of  geography of Stark County "decades down the road."

Just think.

There are cooperative agreements all over and among Stark County political subdivisions.

To name a few:

• Joint Economic Development Districts (JEDD) involving Canton and Jackson Township,
• JEDD consisting of Canton, Jackson Township and Plain Township,
• Note:  Landlocked North Canton bowed out in joining this JEDD on the insistence of North Canton mayor David Held,
• Collaborations among Stark County's 17 school districts, 
• Canton's recent decision (May, 2017) to join in with the countywide 9-1-1 emergency call receiving and dispatching service,

It is somewhat ironic that Councilman Smuckler raised the spectre of  "annexation as the price for getting Canton water" inasmuch as on other issues he is one of Stark County's foremost advocates for efficiency in government collaboration, cooperation and consolidation among Stark County's cities, villages and townships.

Smuckler now says that he has a somewhat different view on the Canton Township and Canton water.

But, to repeat, he did vote against the design ordinance.

Smuckler excitedly shared with me on this past Monday night that he led the way for Canton to pass an ordinance designed to bring Canton's 9-1-1 into being a full-fledged partner with the existing countywide 9-1-1 effort.

Why the excitement?

Because he has been criticized by some Stark County officials as being "all mouth and no accomplishments" on his "let's come together" advocacy.

Part of his problem, he says, in getting Canton on board before now was former Canton mayor William J. Healy, II insistence that working with the countywide effort was not in the interest of Canton.

Smuckler told me that he has received a call from Randy Gonzalez, the prime architect of Stark County's revamped and highly improved 9-1-1 (modernization began post-2008 and a report that Stark's system was broken) estatically congratulating him on being the lead in bringing Canton onboard.

Moreover, Sheriff George T. Maier contacted him and praised him for his successful effort.

The SCPR agrees with the implication of Director Sliman's forward looking projection.

In 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, Stark County's political subdivision operating model if not the county geographical map is likely to be quite a bit different than it is now.

And, in the making, the likes of Smuckler, Nichols, Smith and Gonzalez will be remembered as pioneers in bringing Stark County together!

CANTON WATER SUPPLY STILL AT RISK? PERHAPS, ALSO HILLS & DALES, JACKSON, LAKE, LAWRENCE, MASSILLON, NORTH CANTON, PERRY, PLAIN AND TUSCARAWAS?

UPDATED WITH VIDEO:  10:10 AM

VIDEOS

CANTON WATER SUPERINTENDENT

TYLER CONVERSE

FIRST VIDEO

SCPR "EXCLUSIVE" VIDEO INTERVIEW

ON

STATUS OF CANTON WATER SUPPLY

SECOND VIDEO

UPDATING COUNCIL

WITH INPUT BY

CANTON LAW DIRECTOR

JOE MARTUCCIO

On April 13th of this year, there was a spill of what turned out to be diesel fuel contaminated drilling mud being used in the installation of the Rover natural gas carrying pipeline.

The accidental spill occurred in the process of boring a passageway for the pipeline under the Tuscarawas River near Canton's Sugarcreek well field and near water sources used by Aqua Ohio to service homes and businesses of a number of Stark County's townships.

The contractor installing the pipeline placed the accidently spilled—contaminated with diesel fuel drilling mud—in two quarries:  one near Beach City and Sugarcreek; one near Massillon near Aqua Ohio wells.

There are concerns that notwithstanding Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) and Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission (FERC) finding and demands made on Rover Pipeline LLC ("Rover," Houston, TX) that Rover is not acting quickly enough to remove the contaminated mud from the vicinity of well fields that service the homes and businesses of Canton and highly populated areas of Stark County.

Canton's water superintendent Tyler Converse updated Canton City Council at last night's regular council meeting on the issue of the potential pollution of Canton's Sugarcreek well field water resource that is the source for water supplied to Canton-based homes and businesses.

In the foregoing video, Converse says that his Canton city enterprise department is continuing to monitor the location of the contaminated mud.

Council members last night were front and center in expressing concerns that Canton government would simply sit back and let Rover dictate the timetable for dealing with the problem.



There was talk that Rover might resist moving on to remediation in appealing an Ohio EPA directive (see entire OEPA finding/remediating directive report at the end of this blog) issued about one week ago.

Converse reassured council that such is not and would not be the case.

Canton has retained a consultant and law firm to assist in dealing with getting a satisfactory solution to the spill induced threat.

Superintendent Converse says that each day that the contaminated drilling mud stays in place is another day that the mud might migrate towards the Canton owned well field.

A resource which council president Allen Schulman says is Canton's most valuable financial/economic asset.

Even more important than Canton's approved investment of $5 million in the $700/$800 million Pro Football Hall of Fame Village Project

Stark County stakeholders who should be paying close attention to remediation efforts include residents of:

• Jackson Township,
• Hills & Dales,
• Lake Township,
• Lawrence Township,
• Massillon,
• North Canton,
• Perry Township,
• Plain Township, and
• Tuscarawas Township,

The SCPR has published two prior blogs on this highly important issue which has the "potential" to threaten the well-being of Cantonians/Stark Countians, to wit:

• Blog of June 22, 2017 featuring a video of Stark County commissioner Richard Regula who lives in the general area in which the contaminated drilling mud is located,
• Blog of July 10, 2017 which has a copy of the OEPA findings of contamination and corollary demand for clean up action to be taken,

As reported in the July 10th blog, the SCPR has learned that initially Rover officials told the OEPA that the company was only going to deal with FERC on the matter as it deemed the OEPA not to have jurisdiction over its operations.

However, as can be seen in the FERC document below, the federal agency is having none of it in terms of playing a federal agency off against a state agency and has in the document fully embraced the Ohio EPA findings and demanded action.

Area media reports indicate that Aqua Ohio is also monitoring the situation on a continuing basis and so far is not detecting any problem with its wells water quality.

Recently, the Stark County Water District on its website published a report on Aqua Ohio water quality as of December 31, 2016, to wit:

Here are the two base documents from FERC and the Ohio EPA.

FERC



OHIO EPA

IS CANTON CITY COUNCIL UP TO PROTECTING A CRITICALLY "VITAL" WATER SUPPLY FOR ITSELF & STARK COUNTY?

VIDEO

Bethlehem Township Resident

Richard Regula

Speaks Out on Navarre Area Spill

Recently, it came to light (discovered by the Ohio EPA on April 13, 2017) that there was a "in the process of construction"  natural gas pipeline (Rover) drilling mud spill in Navarre located in Bethlehem Township, home of Stark County commissioner Richard Regula.

Later on in this blog, I will share Regula's in depth observations (via videotaped interview done yesterday) about the occurrence of the spill, its remediation and how our Ohio and national governments are responding.

However, an aspect of the spill that the commissioner did not know much about, that is to say—the city of Canton government—should be one that Cantonians and indeed

Initially, the company doing the drilling put out a press release saying that nearby wells and other major water supply wells (e.g. Canton's Sugarcreek well field, the Tuscarawas river, et cetera) were not at risk for contamination.

A number of years ago (December, 2010), I recall being at an event put on by Canton City Council president Allen Schulman in which he was touting Canton very large drinking water resources as a major asset in the arsenal of infrastructure with which Canton might lure job producing industry and commerce to come to Canton and Stark County.

Another key component of the-then being established Canton Water Commission (headed up by Schulman) was the "protection" of the water supply.

Why have a mission protecting Canton's drinking water supply?

The meeting occurred about the time that fracking for natural gas first came to Stark County.

Then Plain Township trustee (now Stark County clerk of courts) Louis Giavasis was the very first Stark County public official to note of the arrival of fracking the inherent dangers/problems that some see in fracking if not closely monitored and controlled by all levels of government; especially state and local governments.

Another key player in bringing Stark County-based public attention to the dangers that might affect Stark County is long time Stark County civic activist Chris Borello who now lives in Plain Township but formerly lived in Lake Township from whence she commenced her opposition (in the early 1980s) to the ways and means that the U.S. EPA, the Ohio EPA, Stark County-based legislative officials and other local government officials (specifically, the-then township trustees) were ineffectively dealing with dangers to public health potential posed by the Uniontown industrial landfill.

The landfill was the dumping ground for industrial wastes (some highly toxic) buried at a site about 1/2 mile south of Uniontown on the east side of Cleveland Avenue.

Strangely enough, all the hullabaloo generated by Schulman has faded away in terms of a continuing public highlighting of  marketability/protection of Canton's valuable water resource.

Why?

Likely because a consensus of government officials (in a macro view sense) post-2010-onset-alarm developed that Canton government was on-top-of-the-matter and there was very little if anything for the general public to be alarmed about.

With the April 13 discovered by the Ohio EPA Energy Transfers Partners (ETP) spill in Navarre, the alarm bells are again ringing loudly these days.

Despite the initial ETP assurances that the spill was nothing to be concerned about back in April, the controversy lives on on June 22, 2017.

This past Monday, Canton City Council had its water superintendent Tyler Converse come to council and deal with questions on whether or not Canton/Stark County-based Canton water customers had any reason to be concerned about in terms of whether or not the public could feel comfortable with drinking water from the Sugarcreek water facility.

Converse said that Sugarcreek wellfield was about 1/2 mile away from the spill and that he felt that it was very unlikely that any pollutants borne by migrating contaminated (according to the Ohio EPS) drilling mud would make it to Sugarcreek.

But Converse could not absolutely say that the migration would not take place; only, if it did, it would take six to nine months.

Another cautionary flag that Bethlehem locals (well water users), Cantonians and those of us out in the townships/Massillon (via Aqua Ohio) who pipe in generated water from wells located in the spill area, the fact that Canton has hired a law firm to look out for Canton and its customers' interests with regard to whatever longer term problems might develop with the water supply, should Converse be wrong and the contaminated drill mud does get into the Sugarcreek watershed.

It appears that the Ohio EPA is boring in on and staying intimately involved in monitoring and supervising the clean up.

The intense interest of Canton City Council as demonstrated in having the city's water superintendent stay on top of the matter and reporting to council on a continuing basis is encouraging that members are focused on protecting this critically important asset.

Mostly, these days, Canton is struggling to stay afloat with relatively little to cheer about.

Even the Pro Football Hall of Fame expansion project which Canton has invested $5 million in continues to have its skeptics as to whether or not the project will come anywhere near what Canton needs in terms of a economic development boon on the shoulders of which Canton hopes to pull itself out of financial/economic mire.

Sources tell me that the stadium rebuild project is now at $130 million and that the total project is estimated to cost some $800 million and that it is a puzzlement where the money will come from.

One source said that one of the more disturbing aspects of the project is that some of it is being paid for with borrowed (bond) money.

What Canton can be assured of is the tremendous value of its pristine water supply.  While a Canton asset, it has potential to redound to the benefit all of Stark County.

So its up to Canton/Stark County citizens, Canton government, Stark County government, the Ohio EPA and FERC to go all out in protecting this precious resource.

As indicated earlier in this article, a lead Stark County citizen in monitoring developments in dealing with the spill is Plain Township resident Chris Borello.

Here is the core comment of an e-mail she sent out (copied to a number of Canton city officials including council president Allen Schulman)  on June 2nd:

Sent: Fri, Jun 2, 2017 12:51 pm

Subject: Fwd: Rover Pipeline faces more environmental scrutiny

Folks,

This is exactly why I urged proper testing of the "spill", including water soluble radium 226, questioning whether the drilling muds could possibly be "recycled" given what all we have ready about the industry re - using various materials, asking if indeed, it could be "crapped up."

Now, citizens need to know what other parameters /chemicals were tested for , including radium, ( and be assured that proper scientific methods are used in the process, ie., gamma spec)....

Hopefully now the local newspapers will also listen to the concerns by those living near the Stark Countywide Landfill concerning the smoldering landfill fire and concerns about the proximity of this same pipeline to the landfill...!

Chris for Stark County Concerned Citizens

For its part, Aqua Ohio says that its on-going monitoring of water quality of its supply shows no contamination.

As indicated above, the SCPR sat down with Richard Regula (mainly in his role as a lifetime Bethlehem Township resident but peripherally as a Stark County commissioner) who has taken a deep interest in the spill having occurred and following up with state officialdom in a quest to see his community interests and the local and countywide water supply being remediated and protected.

Here is that video (16:44)