Marianna water customers want to be excluded from Pineville water extension

Oct. 18—While the wyoming county commission dissolved the marianna public service district — along with the Brenton PSD — during their Sept. 20 meeting, customers of the entity told commissioners Wednesday during a public hearing they do not want Pineville water extended into their community.

Just as with Wednesday's public hearing, dissolving the public service districts is a required part of the process in extending the Pineville water system into the Brenton area, where the current customers regularly deal with serious, and expensive, water problems.

However, dissolving the Marianna PSD and disbanding it are two different issues, according to Jason Mullins, commission president.

Of the 10 current Marianna water customers, eight households were represented during the meeting, they told commissioners.

All 10 households are on fixed incomes and cannot afford the monthly bill associated with using a new water system, one resident told commissioners.

Marianna customers currently pay $10 a month for water and customers operate the plant and make necessary repairs on a volunteer-basis, they said.

"The community takes care of our own," another resident told the commission. "We don't ask nobody for nothing."

While the project to extend the Pineville water system into the Brenton area will include the Marianna area, it will not impact the current Marianna system, Mullins told the small group.

The extension will be constructed as designed to go by the Marianna homes, but it will be up to the individual residents as to whether they connect to the new water system, explained Stacy Fowler, senior project manager for Thompson & Litton, the project engineers.

Fowler warned, however, that if the residents don't connect to the new system while construction is transpiring, they will have to pay for hooking into the system at a later date, which may cost a few hundred dollars.

A resident of Brenton said he fears that mining in the area may cause the Marianna water source to dry up at some future date, as it has in other locations, and the residents may be forced to use the new water system at some point.

A Turkey Creek resident asked commissioners if the water outflow in Marianna will be impacted as he and other area residents, who have wells, use that water when their wells dry up in the summer. Mullins assured the group the project will not impact the Marianna outflow.

"Our goal is not to make life harder on anybody," Mullins emphasized.

"We're doing our best to provide these utilities for everybody in the county," he said. "Water is our No. 1 priority, sewer is No. 2. We're doing our best to get these projects done."

Fowler emphasized the final decision concerning the future of the Marianna system rests with the West Virginia Public Service Commission, not the county commission.

----Progress on the two associated water projects continues — upgrades to the Pineville water plant and the extension project into the Brenton and Baileysville areas.

A $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) will help fund required upgrades to the Pineville water treatment plant, service lines along Rt. 97 toward Baileysville, as well as evaluating storage tanks and other equipment.

The required plant upgrades will allow the town's water system to be extended into the Baileysville and Brenton areas, explained Eric Combs, Region I Planning and Development Council project manager/GIS specialist.

The federal EDA grant is the final funding needed to complete the in-town project, Combs noted, though officials are exploring additional funding options to bring down the loan cost.

Once operational, the water extension is designed to replace antiquated systems now operated by the Brenton and Marianna public service districts and the Green Camp Water Association.

Phase one of the extension project will take the system from the end of the town's current service lines to Baileysville Elementary and Middle School, adding about 260 new customers.

Before the Brenton/Baileysville extension can move into the construction phase, however, improvements to Pineville's water treatment plant must be completed, according to officials.

The county committed $25,000 to the in-town upgrade project.

Additional funding sources for the $8.3 million in-town upgrade project include the West Virginia Water Development Authority, the West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services' Bureau For Public Health Drinking Water Treatment Revolving Fund, the Wyoming County Commission, and the town of Pineville.

Thompson & Litton, of Princeton, are the engineering consultants for both projects.

In 2022, costs for the Brenton/Baileysville water extension increased by more than $4 million due to supply issues created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

At that time, commissioners approved $250,000 for the extension project from the county's first round of American Rescue Plan funding.

The American Rescue Plan funding is federal money provided in response to the economic downturn created by the Covid-19 pandemic. County and municipal governments must use the federal monies within a certain time frame to fund infrastructure projects — water, sewer, broadband, roads.

Total cost for the Brenton/Baileysville water extension project is estimated at $9.4 million, Combs said, and officials are still seeking funding sources for $2.4 million.

The majority of the preliminary work for the extension project has been completed, Combs explained.

The environmental studies are completed, the project design is nearly complete, and right-of-way has been obtained with the exception of one storage tank site and one easement.