PSC Approves Transfer Agreement

Wednesday October 22, 2008
PSC approves transfer agreement
Pamela Pritt
Editor

West Virginia’s Public Service Commission has approved the transfer of Snowshoe Mountain Resort’s sewage treatment facility to the Pocahontas County Public Service District.

The order was filed last Thursday and includes a a funding prescription for the beleaguered project.

Pocahontas County’s PSD shall also negotiate a loan of not more than $120,000 at an interest rate of not more than 8 pecent for no more than 10 years to be used as “working capital and [to] fund start-up costs for the facility,” according to the order. The PSC also ordered the PSD to negotiate a line of credit for another $107,000 for the “sole purpose of funding major maintenance, repair and replacement needs.”

Both funding measures must be approved by the PSC.

“It’s good news for the project,” PSD attorney Tom Michael said Monday. “It’s the essential next step. It means we will have the money to have the final design complete for the new site.”

The PSD chose Site 7, the original location for Snowshoe’s redesigned plant in 2002, in August after a years-long battle which took the project from private to regional and from a family farm back to Snowshoe’s property.

Michael said he expects the cost of the project to be different. While building the plant with no extension into the valley means less pipe to be used, the cost of pipe has risen since the initial plan was developed, he said.

The PSD’s attorney disputed rumors that Site 5, which lies at the confluence of the Old Field Fork of Elk and the Big Spring Fork, is still in play.

“We have no plans to serve the valley,” Michael said. “It’s not part of our project right now. We are pursuing funding for a plant at Site 7.”

The plant will serve the resort and the nearby Linwood area, he continued.

Plans for development in the valley are now in the hands of the Elk Headwaters Watershed Association, Michael continued.

The PSD has returned $13 million in WVIJDC funding, he said, while maintaining $2 million to, in part, pay for professional services and permitting costs, he said. The money will also be used to repay a loan at Pendleton County Bank, he said.

Michael said test drilling at Site 7 showed mostly solid limestone formation with no significant voids “thus far.” He said the PSD would drill more test holes as the project progresses. And though the plant is slated for a location with limestone, he said, it is “literally 10 feet” from where the topography changes to sandstone.

Karst—porous limestone—has been an issue with the project since it was planned for the Sharp Farm in Slaty Fork.

Snowshoe began the quest for a wastewater treatment plant in 2002. Valley residents contested a privately owned plant, successfully arguing that it would use all the allowable degradation for Cupp Run.

The resort subsequently agreed to pursue a regional plant. After residents, trout fishing enthusiasts and eminent domain opponents objected strenuously to the Sharp Farm location, the PSD agreed to move the location to its original, Snowshoe-owned location.

While no contracts have been signed, the resort’s management has verbally agreed to allow the PSD to use its property, Michael said.