Ashtabula County Port Authority members and county commissioners will pitch the economic importance of Plant C to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ohio representatives from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) at a meeting Tuesday.county commissioners will pitch the economic importance of Plant C to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ohio representatives from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) at a meeting Tuesday.

The authority has applied for a $1.5 million grant from EDA to make improvements to the pumps and water pipes at the Ashtabula Township plant. Port Authority Chairman John Palo said the application has stalled with changes in EDA leadership on the state level and the authority wants to draw upon the senator’s influence to remind the EDA of the request’s critical nature.

At least 850 good-paying jobs hang on the improvements that will be funded by the grant, matched 50 percent by loan proceeds from the Ohio Water Development Authority (OWDA).

Plant C provides raw water to two Ashtabula Township industries, which are paying back the $3 million loan the Port Authority borrowed from OWDA. As part of the port authority’s agreement with the companies, the authority is required to secure funding for the improvements to the pumps and massive pipes, which are 60 years old.

“Our concern is that if the system goes down, if one of those pipes should break, it would quickly flood that room and the whole electrical system,” Palo says. “It would take months to replace that, and the companies would be down during that time. We’re also very concerned about the reliability of the pumps, but it’s mainly those pipes.”

The port authority applied for the loan in January. The total project is $3 million, but Palo said the authority has about $1.2 million it can draw from the OWDA loan to match the EDA grant. The balance of the match would come from the companies served by the system.



The meeting Tuesday morning will be held in the generator room of the former power plant, which the county purchased from FirstEnergy. The port authority views the plant as an economic development tool, not only for providing raw water to existing plants, but also to attract new industry that might require that kind of resource. The plant has a permit to draw a million gallons of fresh water from the lake every day.

The port authority also has been working with Johnson Controls to investigate grants for converting the plant’s electrical-generation side to biomass fuels. The goal is to provide an economical source of electrical power to industries looking to locate in the county. Johnson Controls representatives also will attend the meeting with Brown and EDA officials.

As far as Brown goes, Tuesday’s sales pitch will be preaching to the choir. His wife, Plain Dealer journalist Connie Schultz is an Ashtabula native whose father worked at Plant C. A story she wrote about the plant is to appear in Parade Magazine on Sunday. The column is online (http://www.parade.com/news/backpage/connie-schultz/100905-the-place-my-father-didnt-want-me-to-see.html).

Tuesday’s meeting will be a practice run for another meeting with top brass in October. Palo said a tentative date of Oct. 12  has been set for the gathering at Plant C, at which Johnson Controls executives will pitch the project to U.S. Department of Energy decision-makers and state and federal elected officials. The port authority wants to tap into a large federal grant program for green energy projects; Johnson Controls feels that converting Plant C to a biomass-powered plant would be a good fit for the program.