Brookfield residents living in the West Hill and Brookfield Center South areas will have to wait until next month to find out if Trumbull County will get a state grant to fix their sewer woes.

Concerned residents turned out at a special meeting Wednesday evening to voice their worries about the future of the sewer project.

The project would install sanitary sewers along areas that include Bedford Road, state Route 7, new state Route 82, Wood Street and Brookfield Industrial Park.

Tom Holloway, county sanitary engineer, and Jim Brutz, an assistant county prosecutor, informed residents that county officials won't know until May whether they'll receive the $329,075 grant from the Ohio Public Works Commission.

County officials received the go-ahead from local authorities and are waiting on the state to review their application.

If the county gets the grant, officials won't receive the funds until July, Holloway said.

He said that although other areas of the township have sewer problems, officials chose to focus on this one area first because they thought it would better their chances of securing funding.

"There's no guarantee that we'll get any funding," Holloway said. "There are many problem areas, but we broke this into a manageable project based on the general plan."

On April 7, representatives from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the county health department told residents that many ditches in the township were filling with fecal matter, which is a violation of Ohio law.

Because of the problem, many residents were told they have to have their tanks pumped every six months and install chlorination devices on their systems.

Some residents have said they've only been given 30 days to comply with Ohio EPA standards.

That month ends April 30.

Several residents at Wednesday's meeting expressed concern over having only a month to fix their systems without even knowing if the county will get the grant.

Rocco Vadala of Wood Street said he wishes officials would hold off on their deadline until the county gets word about the grant allocation.

"We definitely have a problem here that needs to be solved," he said. "Everybody in this room wants (this project) but we hope they would wait to see if we will get the grant money so we can know where we stand."

County commissioners contracted Wednesday morning with Thomas Fok and Associates Ltd. to design a system that will create sewers for one area of the township.

Officials have estimated that the entire project will cost $658,150 but Holloway stressed that that number could change depending on contractors' findings.

"We're tying this to economic development," Holloway said after Wednesday's meeting. "So more jobs will be retained in this area."