Annual FPA Update

Summary

As the state-designated water quality management planning agency for Portage, Stark, Summit, and Wayne Counties, NEFCO is responsible for coordinating the use, amendments to, and updates of the region’s Clean Water Plan (208 Plan), in accordance with Section 208 of the federal Clean Water Act. NEFCO’s FY2025 contracts with Ohio EPA include the completion of the voluntary annual Clean Water Plan (CWP) FPA update that began in FY2024 to assist the NEFCO region’s wastewater management agencies (MAs) that wish to update the boundaries and/or wastewater treatment prescriptions (options) of their respective 201/208 facilities planning areas (FPAs). This is the second consecutive year that NEFCO has offered the region’s MAs this opportunity to update the FPAs under their wastewater management jurisdiction. The NEFCO staff has worked closely with the Environmental Resources Technical Advisory Committee (ERTAC) and our member agencies and departments on this important update of some of the region’s FPAs and on continuing to establish an annual FPA update process to be utilized in subsequent years.

This year’s voluntary FPA update began on February 16th. The participating MAs were given a June 26, 2024 deadline to submit their proposed updates to NEFCO. At the request of some of the MAs, NEFCO staff extended the deadline to July 3, 2024 to give the MAs additional time to complete mapping revisions requested by NEFCO.

Under the federal Clean Water Act and Ohio Revised Code, Ohio EPA should not issue a Permit-to-Install (PTI) for sanitary sewer extensions or approve an infrastructure loan when either conflict with the 208 Plan. Therefore, it is advantageous for the MAs to anticipate areas under their wastewater jurisdiction, which may not currently be consistent with the 208 Plan, and to recommend an FPA update so that the area is compliant with the 208 Plan’s wastewater treatment options.

The annual FPA update process will continue to make FPA updates more manageable than letting needed updates accumulate over several years, and then having to undertake a comprehensive 201/208 FPA update. It may alleviate delays for some expected economic and residential development projects which would currently conflict with the 208 Plan. By correctly anticipating the size of an expected project, the MA can prepare an adequate 208 Plan update through NEFCO’s annual FPA update process, thus enabling the project to be in agreement with the Plan prior to the submittal of the project’s permit or loan application to Ohio EPA.

For the annual update of 201/208 FPAs to proceed efficiently and to accurately reflect the intention of the MAs and communities, primary MA staff were required to submit:

  • Graphics packages with .PDF figures of an FPA location map and paired existing and proposed wastewater treatment prescriptions/FP boundaries, grouped into Update Areas.
  • Written prescription changes
  • Documentation indicating coordination with affected jurisdictions
  • GIS mapping of Update Areas and proposed changes

NEFCO staff held a virtual meeting on March 13, 2024 with participating MA staff in order to describe mapping requirements and guidelines. NEFCO staff continued to provide guidance to MA staff to review format and, in some cases, suggest approaches to map dozens of update areas in concentrated areas.

Six MAs submitted their proposed update application packages by the July 3rd extended submittal deadline. In contrast with 2023, with nine small update areas, MA staff submitted 721 individual updates that were grouped into 55 Update Areas to facilitate review. Between mid-February and late June 2024, NEFCO staff reviewed the maps, documentation, and data for accuracy, consistency, and format and coordinated with MA staff for revisions or questions.

Review of Proposed Updates

Proposed updates include changes to wastewater treatment options or FPA boundaries, updating mapping to reflect current practices, or better align current prescriptions with parcel boundaries. Proposed updates range in size, from small parcels or parcel edges (tens of feet) to larger areas such as clusters of parcels (hundreds to thousands of feet).

It is important that reviewers have the opportunity to see all/any of the proposed updates and easily compare proposed updates with the currently approved CWP mapping. It is not feasible to show the number or size range of proposed updates on static .PDF maps. Since the 2020 CWP Update, NEFCO has used two types of mapping to present Board-approved and proposed updates of the CWP FPA boundaries and prescriptions. Both are valid representations of current and proposed prescriptions/FPAs. The different mapping forms are available via links on this website and embedded in the online interactive map and should be used together:

  • Static .PDF maps - are useful for overview and to review larger proposed updates. They allow quick comparison of existing and proposed conditions of large areas. Starting with the static maps allows reviewers to find the general area of interest. Chapter 3 Appendix static .PDF maps are found here. Static .PDF maps of proposed FPA updates are found at the four links below:
  • Online Interactive Map – allows reviewers to zoom in, pan, and search from the NEFCO region down to the parcel level. Reviewers can turn layers on and off for easier viewing. Tools allow users to display information and add comments by clicking on specific locations. The online interactive CWP Update 2024 public review map is found here. The front page has detailed instructions on how to use the map, and a downloadable copy of the instructions is found here.

To reiterate, the .PDF maps are representations of the exact proposed update areas that are shown on the interactive online draft update map. They contain update areas with details that cannot be seen due to the production scale limitations of those maps. Also, not all parcels within a mapped update area have proposed FPA boundary modifications or wastewater prescription changes. This is because the MAs grouped as many parcels as possible that have prescription changes into larger update areas, to limit the number of maps needed for review (for an example of this see Portage County Water Resource’s Ravenna FPA update Figure 2A and 2B PDF map’s update area “rvp-6”). These details are visible on NEFCO's interactive online draft FPA update map by turning the the proposed wastewater prescription layer on and off with the parcels layer turned on.

Public Review and Comment Period Ended on October 29, 2024

The ERTAC performed a technical review of the proposed FPA updates received from the MAs and the online draft update map at its September 4, 2024 meeting and recommended that the NEFCO General Policy Board release the draft update for public review and comments. At the NEFCO General Policy Board meeting on September 18, 2024, the Board released the fiscal year 2025 draft 201/208 FPA update for a 30-day public review and comment period, which began on September 30, 2024. The comment period ended on October 29, 2024. Comments are no longer being accepted. Visitors to this website posted no substantive comments on the interactive online draft FPA update map during the public comment period. Two MAs commented, confirming their submitted updates.

Final drafts of the static .PDF maps of this year’s FPA updates are found at the four links below:

These are identical to the static .PDF maps of proposed FPA updates that were available for public review and comments found at the four links above, except now they are in final draft form and comments are no longer being accepted. Again, they should be viewed in conjunction with the interactive online draft FPA update map to see the details of the updates.

Please email or call Tom LaPlante, (tlaplante@nefcoplanning.org or 330.643.5042) with questions about the annual FPA update.

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