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Airport Authority Wants Safeguards on $100M River Project
"By George NelsonVIENNA, Ohio -- The Western Reserve Port Authority is still considering whether it wants to serve as the lead agent for efforts to clean up the Mahoning River but board members first want assurances the entity won't be on the hook for millions of dollars in matching funds.Dan Keating, port authority attorney, said he expects a meeting "in the very near future" with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Eastgate Council of Regional Governments regarding the proposal to remediate the river, polluted for years by now-defunct steel mills.The Corps of Engineers approached the port authority this spring about serving as the sponsor agency on the project, which would administer the federal funds allocated for the cleanup and seek other money for local match. Keating said the port authority was identified as the most appropriate local entity to handle the project due to its experience with large construction projects, its eminent domain powers and its status as an entity covering Mahoning and Trumbull counties, through which the river flows.A feasibility study is nearing its conclusion, and the project itself -- expected to run through 2015 -- is projected to cost in excess of $100 million. "I don't think there's any government entity here -- whether it be a collection of cities, townships, counties --- I mean nobody has the money," Keating said.Port authority board members instructed Keating to draft a proposal defining what their role would be, and specifying that any matching funds for the cleanup must come from another source. Without an agreement that the matching funds would come from elsewhere. "We just can't do it" said board member Bill Kelly."I'm all for saving the river. I just don't want to kill the airport in the process," said board member John Masternick.The Corps of Engineers, Keating noted, has done projects like this before. "So they have quite a set of ideas on how these things are supposed to be set up, and some of our ideas might be a little different because we simply don't have the money," he said. "But we're going to be talking to the Corps of Engineers and see if we can meet them somewhere halfway."At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the Port Authority also voted to accept a $340,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to be used for a new master plan for the regional airport. The current master plan was completed in 1994 and updated in 1997. Officials said a second grant is expected in 2005 to cover the remaining cost for the new master plan, which could about $500,000.Steve Bowser, airport director, noted that FAA is often reluctant to approve items not included in the master plan. Local input will be sought for the new master plan, which should take a year to complete, said William H. Barley, regional vice president for R.W. Armstrong, the port authority's manager for the master plan project.The board members also received contracts that they are expected to vote on at the port authority's December meeting to hire Landrum & Brown Inc. and Aerofinity Inc. to prepare the new master plan. Bowser reported that October receipts totaled $150,297, with expenses of $79,104. Year to date, the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport had income of $1,005,035 and expenses of $1,059,155, a shortfall of $54,120, he said."