Mar. 11—The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Saturday, included funding for a variety of projects in Ashtabula County.

Congressman Dave Joyce (OH-14) announced the funds in a press release that explained his support for the act.

“As an appropriator, I fought to bring your hard-earned tax dollars back to Northeast Ohio. This bill included over $38 million in funding for local priorities including funds for dredging, improvements to infrastructure and roads, and resources for first responders,” Joyce said.

The largest amount, just under $3.9 million, will go to renovations to the Ashtabula Towers.

The county will receive $2.4 million, will go to the county for the South River Road waterline extension and the construction of a water tower in Harpersfield.

The next largest amount, $2.2 million, will go to sanitary sewer improvements in Kingsville Township. The township received $1 million from the state last year to help pay for a sewer system at the Interstate 90/Route 193 interchange, which currently does not have sewer service.

Karl Brunell, who works with a committee seeking to expand the sewers at the interchange, said the funding has been on the committee’s radar for some time, and he is pleased it has been approved.

“The approval is a big step forward, you don’t want to count all your chickens before they hatch,” he said.

The next step for the project is the completion of a design study, which will be followed by finding out how to bridge the last gap in funding, Brunell said.

“It’s a big step forward,” he said.

Brunell said the project is focused on the commercial properties on the intersection, and won’t involve forced tie-in for residential properties in the township or North Kingsville.

The sewer system will involve a gravity-driven system to a pump station at the interchange, and a forced main to a treatment facility on Greene Road.

Geneva-on-the-Lake will receive $2 million for a sanitary sewer trunkline.

GOTL Mayor Dwayne Bennett said the project has been in the works for three to three and a half years.

He said the village received a $4 million grant from the Ohio EPA for the project, which will increase the size of the village’s main sewer line from 18 to 24 inches.

“What we’re hoping to do is maybe take the $2 million grant and extend the project a bit, obviously we’ve got to go through the details, with engineering,” Bennett said, “Maybe we can sewer some areas that aren’t sewered.”

If the funds are needed for the main project, they will be used for that.

“We greatly appreciate Dave Joyce’s office for getting that grant for us,” Bennett said.

Estimates in price for the base project are coming in around $2-4 million, Bennett said.

The current main sewer line is over capacity during peak times for the village, he said.

“This should alleviate all of that,” Bennett said. “We’re going to go up to a 24-inch [line], and then we should good to go for anything in the future.”

Bennett said the village has been doing a lot of sewer repairs for the last several years.

“We laid down a lot of groundwork, we showed that our capacity is at certain levels at certain times, so we keep track of all that, … we fixed some of our [sewer inflow and infiltration] problems, so we have records of all of that, and it all helps when we go to apply for a grant so they can see what our problems are and what our needs are,” he said.

Bennett said he hopes the increased sewer capacity will draw new development to the village, as well.

UH Geneva’s emergency department will get $530,000 to modernize equipment, and $375,000 will go to G.O. Community Development.