STEUBENVILLE — Emergency legislation that would clear the way for the city to apply for Ohio Water Pollution Control funds for Steubenville’s CSO12 project is up for a crucial vote during Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

But instead of a simple majority (four votes), for this ordinance to pass as an emergency, council will need to find a fifth vote and, as Wastewater Superintendent Chuck Murphy found out at the Jan. 21 meeting, that’s not a given. If it does fail, they’ll have to bring it back for three all-new readings

At that meeting, after council heard the second reading of the ordinance at Murphy’s request council voted 4-3 to consider it as emergency legislation. A motion to waive the rules and hear the final reading that same night failed, so now it will be on Tuesday’s agenda for its third reading — and because it’s now emergency legislation, five votes will be needed to pass it.

The council members who voted no at the last Tuesday’s meeting — Councilman at large Joel Walker, First Ward Councilmen Dave Albaugh and Second Ward Councilman Tracy McManamon — all had raised concerns about the price tag, particularly since so many big-ticket projects are looming on the city’s horizon.

Planning and design alone, to be done by HDR Engineering, for CSO12, will cost just under $200,000.

But the CSO12 project would fix what Murphy has described as a disaster in waiting at the South End of town, on the old Weirton Steel property.

There’s a big, visible sinkhole on the property, but he said it’s less concerning “because no one is currently utilizing that property and … it’s not like a lot of people are driving across it every day. If that were the case, we would have had to push it through sooner.”

The big issue, he said, is the line’s proximity to the railroad tracks and “what’s going on underneath them, where you’re looking at potential failure of the tracks.” There’s a hole on the side of the line “that looks like a crater” and the pipe itself “actually looks like an eggshell” with cracks running through it. He said all of that suggests “the ground is crushing the pipe, there are indications the line is collapsing.”

He said the question in his mind isn’t if the line will eventually collapse, it’s when.

“The only question is the timeline that it’s going to occur,” Murphy said. “It’s not a question of if it’s going to occur but how fast, considering the fact that we’ve seen a pretty good rate of degradation from 2023 to 2024. And with the massive weather issues we’ve had here, the severe cold — we can’t say for sure what degree of impact that may have already had … It’s too much risk to play with.”

The plan for fixing it, with council and also Norfolk Southern’s approval, is to reroute the sewer flow from Slack Street to the Permars Run line near state Route 7 and fill the old line and sink hole with low strength mortar.

“The line east of (the problem area) will be filled in and abandoned, so there’s no further risk of collapse.”

Albaugh said Sunday he’s not sure what will happen with Tuesday’s vote.

“I’m just concerned that it has been known about for so long and now it’s an emergency,” Albaugh said. “And we had all kinds of time to figure out funding for it but we haven’t. I think we should exhaust all other funding options before we take out another loan to cover the cost. I would say if it was taken care of years ago when the issue arose, would (might have been able to do it) for half the price.”

Walker disagreed with labeling it an emergency, saying, “It’s been around for years needing to be fixed and all of a sudden it became an emergency.”

“I have a few more questions that need to be answered, but the bottom line is it needs to be done,” he said.

Third readings also will be heard for ordinances authorizing City Manager Jim Mavromatis to ink the contract with the Ohio Department of Transportation for the state Route 7 resurfacing project and to seek bids for the 2025 Community Development Street Resurfacing program.

Also scheduled for third readings are ordinances repealing existing Chapter 1339 and enacting a new Chapter 1339 of the codified ordinances; repealing existing Chapter 1341 and enacting a new Chapter 1341 of the codified ordinances; and amending the table of organization specifically for the Planning and Urban Redevelopment Department.