MANSFIELD — The Mansfield Board of Control on Tuesday approved a trio of contracts totaling $1.26 million as part of a plan to begin a series of improvements at the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
All three contracts are with American Structurepoint Inc., a national company headquartered in Indianapolis with offices in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.
The work is planned to help bring the site at 385 S. Illinois Ave. into compliance with Ohio EPA discharge regulations, according to city engineer Bob Bianchi, who said the state environmental agency began issuing orders to the city in 2015.
The contracts will be paid from the city’s sewer fund, the engineer said, indicating City Council had previously approved the work.
The city’s WTTP treats the city’s sewage and some industrial wastewater before discharging it into the Rocky Fork branch of the Mohican River.
“(This work) is associated with discussions that we are having with the EPA and ensuring that we work our way towards compliance and making sure that the treatment plant operates efficiently and legally,” Bianchi said.
The three contracts approved Tuesday were:
— $60,000 for general engineering services on a “task order” basis, which Bianchi said is equivalent to having the company on retainer to work on issues as they arise.
— $436,400 to draft a “comprehensive plan” for submission to the EPA that looks at the plant “in totality” and identifies improvements needed to come into regulatory compliance.
“There’s a lot of study that needs to be done,” Bianchi said. “They will be working very closely with the treatment plant personnel and making sure that this document sent to the EPA is complete …(and) that we agree with the EPA on what needs to happen over the next five to 10 years and (that) those improvements are implemented.”
— $771,200 to design a project to replace the aeration blowers at the plant. He said only two of the plant’s four blowers are operational.
Aeration blowers are described as the “lungs” of a WWTP. They push huge volumes of air into the aeration tanks during the secondary (biological) treatment stage. These blowers keep the biology alive and the tank well-mixed so the plant can clean the water effectively before it’s discharged or reused,” the city engineer said.
“We already know (the project) is a significant improvement that needs to be performed.”
According to Bianchi, the EPA said the city should move forward with the project rather than wait for the comprehensive plan to be completed.
“‘You know you have to get it done. Start the design,'” the engineer said the EPA indicated.
“This is for the aeration and blower improvements,” Bianchi said. “This is just the design for that project and it’s a complete replacement of the blower. It will most likely be an electric blower system that’s installed, but of course, that’s still being worked out.”
The current blowers were installed in 1984 at a plant that opened in 1957.
Once the project is designed, Bianchi said it will cost between $6 and $10 million to actually purchase and install the new blower system.
No major improvements have been made at the plant since 1984, according to Bianchi, though the system’s largest pump station on Park Avenue East was replaced in 2021 at a cost of $4.5 million.
Previously, the city worked with a Toledo engineering firm to evaluate and suggest improvements to Mansfield’s wastewater treatment plant.
Jones & Henry Engineers Ltd. worked with the city for a decade on issues at the site since the Ohio EPA noted problems at the plant and began requiring improvements.
Previous improvements at the facility between 2014 and 2018 proved inadequate to meet the EPA’s more stringent permit licensure restrictions.
“The plant began to routinely exceed the new limits on total suspended solids and (carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand),” according to an April 2025 proposal by Jones & Henry.
CBOD is one of the regulated parameters for polluted water, including for wastewater at wastewater treatment plants, according to the Wastewater Digest online website.
“Occasionally, the plant was able to meet permit limit concentrations. However, due to the high volume of storm water during wet weather, it would exceed the total loading,” Jones & Henry said.
“The city’s permit exceedances have led to significant non-compliance throughout the 2018-2023 permit cycle,” the company said.
