ELYRIA – Work will continue on the controversial sewer line being built by the Lorain County Rural Wastewater District after a hearing on Eaton Township’s request to halt construction that had been set for Friday was postponed until May.

It took nearly two hours of meetings in the chambers of Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski with attorneys for Eaton Township, LORCO and Avon Lake, which is also a defendant in the case, before the delay was announced.

Dennis O’Toole, LORCO’s attorney, also asked Betleski to throw out the lawsuit filed by Eaton Township trustees on Thursday, arguing that county court wasn’t the proper venue for the case.

If Eaton Township had wanted to challenge LORCO’s installation of the sewers, which began earlier this year, it should have filed a challenge before the Ohio Environmental Appeals Commission.

Elyria filed a challenge before the commission last year, arguing that LORCO’s new sewer lines could take away potential customers from the city’s sewer lines.

Thursday’s lawsuit contends that LORCO should stop work because the sewer district hasn’t resolved legal issues, including Elyria’s challenge and obtaining easements from more than 40 homeowners to install sewer lines.

It also contends that LORCO isn’t a valid entity and that three LORCO board seats were improperly removed in 2003, which makes anything the board did after that illegal.

O’Toole said Thursday’s lawsuit isn’t the first time Eaton Township trustees Linda Morrison and Donna Hicks have sued over LORCO. Hicks is a longtime LORCO opponent who defeated pro-LORCO former trustee Doug Edwards in his re-election bid in November.

Both she and Morrison have sued in the past as private citizens. This week’s lawsuit is the first they’ve filed on behalf of township residents. The third trustee, Frank Piskur, voted against the lawsuit last month.

“It’s like a bad penny,” O’Toole said. “They just keep coming back.”

Luke McConville, Eaton Township’s attorney, declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday.

George Coleman was in the courtroom waiting for the hearing Friday with his retired mother, Ruth Coleman, and said she can’t afford to tie into the sewers when they eventually run past her Eaton Township home.

Cost has been a main topic for critics of LORCO, who argue that the project is too expensive and that promised homes the district was counting on to keep costs low won’t be built because of the recession.

They’ve also argued that the 37½-mile sewer line that will run from parts of Eaton and Carlisle townships to Avon Lake’s sewer plant is unnecessary.

But LORCO Executive Director Rob Berner said Friday that while the current generation of township residents may oppose the sewers, in the long term it’s a good idea to replace the aging septic systems in the area. More than 40 percent of those septic systems are failing, he said.

“The reality is we’re still going to put sewers in Eaton and Carlisle townships,” Berner said.

Installing the sewer is expected to cost about $14 million, far less than original estimates that ran as high as $32 million, according to LORCO officials.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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