Fiscal Year 2026 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 FY2026 contracts with Ohio EPA include the completion of the voluntary annual Clean Water Plan (CWP) FPA update that began in fiscal year 2025 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 third 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 18^th. The participating MAs were given a July 28, 2025 deadline to submit their proposed updates to 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 request 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 an application for 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:

• GIS mapping of Update Areas and proposed changes (in NEFCO’s GIS data format)
• 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

NEFCO staff held a virtual meeting on March 6, 2025 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. By mid-June 2025, NEFCO staff reviewed the data, maps, and documentation for accuracy, consistency, and format and coordinated with MA staff for revisions or questions.

Four MAs submitted their proposed update application packages by the July 28^th submittal deadline. The products from this update are 57 update areas consisting of about 431 parcels (large and small) and small gaps, slivers, and overlaps where four MAs have proposed FPA boundary modifications or wastewater prescription (options) changes to the FPA maps for Portage, Stark, and Summit Counties. In all, the participating MAs have proposed to update the wastewater prescriptions for 13 FPAs across those counties, plus for one area outside of any FPA in Summit County. They have also proposed modifying three FPA boundaries across Portage and Summit Counties.

Review of Proposed Updates

Proposed updates include changes to wastewater treatment options or FPA boundaries, updating mapping to reflect current conditions, 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 interactive online draft update 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 three links below:
  • Portage County FPA updates
  • Stark County FPA updates
  • Summit County FPA updates
• 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 interactive online FY2026 draft FPA update 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 Atwater FPA update Figure 2A and 2B PDF map’s update area “atp-1”). These details are visible on NEFCO's interactive online draft FPA update map by zooming in on a specific update area, and by turning the proposed wastewater prescription layer on and off with the parcels layer turned on.

In addition to the above maps, another product from the update available for review is proposed text-only wastewater prescription updates that MAs are proposing for the following 208 Plan’s Chapter 3 Appendices:  3-11 Windham, 3-30 Cuyahoga Valley Interceptor FPA, 3-31 Fish Creek FPA, 3-33 Springfield No. 91 FPA, and 3-35 Summit County Metropolitan Sewer District Jurisdiction Areas not part of an FPA. Please see the Portage and Summit County FPA update .pdf posted above to view and comment on these five draft Chapter 3 Appendices.

Public Review and Comment Period:  September 26, 2025 through October, 26, 2025

The ERTAC performed a technical review of the proposed FPA updates received from the MAs and the online draft update map at its September 3, 2025 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 17, 2025, the Board released the fiscal year 2026 draft FPA update for a 30-day public review and comment period, which runs from September 26, 2025, through October 26, 2025. The last day comments will be accepted is October 26, 2025.

Comments may be sent directly to Tom LaPlante along with the unique Update Area ID (e.g., “atp-2”) shown on the draft FPA update map or they may be posted directly onto the interactive online draft FPA update map by following the instructions on the left side of the map. For questions about the draft FPA update or how to submit comments or the 208 Plan, please contact Tom. Staff will respond to each comment received by NEFCO during the public review and comment period.

Please contact Tom LaPlante with questions about the annual FPA update.