HERMITAGE — An official with the state Department of Environmental Protection said three issues led to DEP banning Hermitage from adding new connections to the sanitary sewer system.

Ricardo F. Gilson said Hermitage’s water pollution control plant is organically overloaded; parts of the treatment process have been bypassed during a handful of heavy rains; and the city’s permit has expired.

City Manager Gary P. Hinkson said city officials thought the first two issues had been taken care of and pledged to do whatever is needed to get the city back into compliance.

“We don’t want to have an adversarial relationship with DEP,” Hinkson said. “We’re going to work through this.”

Gilson, project manager for the water management program, said the plant was designed to take in a certain poundage of organic matter each day. The plant has been taking in more than the design specifications, he said.

Plant operators have been properly handling the excess organic matter, Gilson said.

“Actually, because you’ve got some good folks down there, it is functioning properly,” he said of the plant.

The plant was rerated some years ago to show that it can handle more organic material, and DEP wants to see the documentation proving that assertion, Hinkson said.

Hinkson added that the city has been sending DEP reports since the mid-’80s years about the amount of organic material the plant handles, and those reports have not been questioned by DEP.

“Obviously, we don’t want to do anything wrong,” Hinkson said.

Gilson said the city might have reported the higher poundage values in the past. “We didn’t pick up on it until this year’s report,” he said. Gilson also said he didn’t believe the organic overloads are a “major hurdle.” The state wants the city’s permit to reflect the proper organic value, he said.

On the issue of the bypasses, “We had been led to believe that wasn’t an issue any more,” Gilson said, noting DEP’s recent discovery of the bypasses.

“I think that was new to them, too,” he said of city officials.

However, Gilson said, DEP learned that, during heavy rains, waste flowing into the plant bypasses part of the treatment system, gets a minimal treatment, and is discharged with treated water into Bobby Run.

Hinkson said there have been four times over the last two years where that happened. The excess flow is chlorinated to kill pathogens before it is released.

“It is not an overflow where it goes into the environment without being treated,” Hinkson said. “There is some treatment.”

The plant’s release of untreated sewage into Bobby Run brought on the consent order and decree city officials signed with Hermitage Municipal Authority and DEP on April 11, 2003.

The city did not consider these four instances to be bypasses — and did not report them to DEP — because city officials believed they were allowed by the consent decree, Hinkson said.

The order notes that the plant’s excess flow treatment storage basins and micro-straining units were taken out of operation in 1996 because they had fallen into disrepair, and the action violated two city permits.

“Without the use of the excess flow treatment system, excess flow is routed through the ‘emergency diversion,’ which bypasses primary and secondary treatment, and combines with treated wastewater in the chlorine contact tank, then discharges,” the order said. “The ‘emergency diversion’ is only permitted for use in an emergency situation.”

The city was fined for overflows in the past, but had not been fined — nor has it reported any overflows — since a plant expansion went on line in 2006. Two equalization basins were built that allow the plant to hold 3è million gallons until it can be properly treated.

“We may be fined now,” Hinkson said.

Hinkson said he was told by DEP Tuesday it likely will take 90 days to renew the city’s discharge permit and allocate new connections to the system.

Gilson said he cannot predict how long it might take to clear up the issues, but added, “Hermitage has always been a community that has been good to deal with.”

The city filed an application for a new discharge permit in October, but the permit expired in April.

The city also has asked for an extension in which to complete a second plant expansion, which was supposed to be complete by 2010. City officials said they cannot make that deadline.

Gilson called the request for an extension on the plant expansion a “separate issue” from the discharge permit.

Under the consent order, the city asks for an annual allocation of sewer connections. In previous years, DEP approved the request and the city has never used up all that were allocated.

DEP will allow connections during the time of the ban for projects that eliminate failing on-lot systems, building projects at LindenPointe technical business park and Stateline Industrial Park, and projects of public need, such as medical facilities.

Hinkson said the city has no projects in the pipeline that would be affected by the ban.

The ban also covers parts of Clark, Wheatland and South Pymatuning and Shenango townships, which send waste to Hermitage for treatment, and Jefferson Township, which is building a sanitary sewer system that will connect to Hermitage’s.