PERRYSVILLE — The village of Perrysville received a $1 million grant for a water system regionalization project from H2Ohio, according to a Dec. 1 press release from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
“Small villages just don’t really have the money for that kind of stuff,” said Michael McCaskey, Perrysville’s village administrator.
“It’s just awesome that we have these agencies that will provide the money there for us to get these things done.”
Gov. DeWine’s office launched H2Ohio in 2019.
It operates with the goal of improving water infrastructure and providing Ohioans access to clean, reliable water.
This year’s grants went to 14 projects across the state, totaling $16.7 million distributed.
“This new round of H2Ohio funding focused predominantly on supporting the regionalization and consolidation of drinking water and wastewater systems,” the press release stated.
Perrysville’s project
McCaskey explained the grant focused on places where one community is consolidating its water and sewer plants into a single entity, rather than three or four in an area.
In Perrysville’s case, the village’s regionalization means the Muskingum campground will fall under the village’s water and sewer plant.
McCaskey said the water and sewer plant at the campground will be demolished.
“With this project, what we’re doing now, that will pretty much have the water plant rebuilt too,” McCaskey said.
The idea to regionalize came last year. McCaskey said he received a call asking if the village would want to supply the campground’s water.
“It was at the point where they’d have to either build a new water plant and then also rebuild a sewer plant,” McCaskey said. “So, they were at the point where they had to do something with what they had.
“The [Ohio] EPA thought they might be interested in regionalizing and reached out to me.”
McCaskey said the $1 million likely won’t cover the whole project. But the village plans to apply for other grants to help cover the cost.
McCaskey hopes to complete the project by 2025. He said 2026 is the deadline to finish the regionalization projects.
Perrysville has received H2Ohio funding before.
McCaskey said the village received a grant for the village’s sewer plant a couple of years ago.
That grant replaced the sewer plant’s electrical components and was used to purchase a new generator.