Snowshoe owners want PSD to keep rate hikes in check

Geoff Hamill
Staff Writer

Debate over a regional sewage treatment plant continued at the Pocahontas Public Service District (PSD) meeting on February 4 at the Slaty Fork Community Center, as the public provided comments on the latest proposals by Thrasher Engineering. Thrasher has done design work on the project for the PSD since 2003.

Representatives of Snowshoe businesses and homeowners expressed grave concerns over increasing sewage rates and the potential for even higher rates that will result from construction of a regional sewage treatment plant.

Snowshoe’s rates increased in January after the PSD took over the plants at Snowshoe. The Pocahontas PSD rates are currently $33 per every 4500 gallons treated, according to the West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) website. Public service district rates in the state range from a low of $14.75 to a high of $59.27 per 4500 gallons, placing the Pocahontas PSD rates about midrange statewide.

Don Miller, vice president of the Camp Four townhouse complex, said business was hurting at Snowshoe and rate increases would only make things worse.

“The economy’s in the toilet – we all know that. There’s people on the edge up there. Snowshoe will tell you there’s a 12 percent decrease in rentals. Some of us are looking at 30 to 40 to 50 percent decrease in rental income,” he said.

Miller said a hastily planned sewage project, built for the benefit of developers in the valley, at the expense of Snowshoe residents, would only make things worse.
“I come from New Jersey, one of the most corrupt states in the country – born and raised there. They are where they are today because of fast action without thought and without consideration. You don’t have to do it today – you don’t have to do it tomorrow. Take time and look at what you have,” he said.

“People come up here for what West Virginia and Pocahontas County have. It has something unique. You don’t want to destroy it. If you want to destroy it, move ahead fast, stick something in that’s going to benefit a few on the backs of many and you won’t have what you have today,” he added.

Miller urged the PSD to conduct a peer review of Thrasher’s work.

“The Thrasher engineering study appears to be something that I wouldn’t even put a dime into. For them to say ‘put that plant on the Sharp’s Farm,’ you have to have serious considerations about what these people are talking about. Get a second review,” he said.

PSD secretary Scott Millican said the PSD would consider a peer review only if the county commission provided funding.

“If the county commission is willing to kick in some money to support peer review, then I’ll endorse it,” he said.

County commissioner David Fleming said that he would put the item on the commission agenda for discussion.

John Butler, general manager of Mountain Lodge Association, said owners at the 228-condominium complex were upset after receiving notice of higher rates.

“Since the letter came out with the increase, I have received probably four or five thousand emails and calls with all kinds of statements and questions,” he said.

“A lot of the people who are not residents of the county or state are paying a major burden to this county and have for a long time,” he added.

Butler questioned why the Snowshoe sewage rates increased in January while Snowshoe Water and Sewer continues to operate the plants until July.

“The first major question is why the rate and why now? The understanding is that Snowshoe is still running the sewer plant from January 1 until June 30 and on June 30, the PSD is taking over. We’ve been bumped up considerably, at our lodge alone, for six months of the same,” he added.

Butler said proposed plant designs were too large and that other municipalities had taken a different approach.

“The capacity of that plant that you’re planning seems well beyond what Snowshoe requires and even what is required in the valley for the next 20-25 years.”

“Other municipalities in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and other areas in the same situation, started with much less in plant size, taking care of a lot more people than we have here, and then membranes and clusters can be added on to those plants in future years,” he said.

Butler said out-of-state owners at Mountain Lodge felt they were being used to fund infrastructure development in the county because they didn’t have a vote and that many were getting out of Snowshoe.

“They feel that the strategy of the PSD and possibly, the county commission and some other people, is to have this expansion in all the county’s infrastructure on the backs of the homeowners or property owners at Snowshoe, who do not live in the county or state and therefore have no vote.”

“They don’t live in the state or county but their money does. Their money comes in here every day – a lot of it – they are affectionately referred to by county people as ‘cash cows,’” he said. “What people are telling me is they’re not going to play the game anymore. They’re getting rid of their units. They’re going to sell them or just walk away from them,” he added.

Dale Leatherman, of the Snowshoe Property Owners Council, said owners were outraged over the rate increase.

“What I’m getting from homeowners is outrage over the interim rates. There are about 350 homes at Snowshoe that are for sale, right now. I worry that rates will push people into foreclosure or selling their properties at auction and all this does harm to the county as well as the resort,” she said.

“A lot of people object to the fact that we are considered to be out-of-state money and therefore we can be tapped without hurting anybody locally. But the fact is – what hurts Snowshoe, hurts the county,” she added.

Leatherman said the PSD and the Elk Headwaters Watershed Association (EHWA) should work in tandem to determine what the area needed. She said the PSD should wait until the EHWA completes a comprehensive watershed plan before selecting a plant design for the area.

“I think until the comprehensive watershed plan can be completed, so that we have a better understanding, I would like to see this project delayed,” she said.

Fleming said the county commission had discussed separate PSDs for the resort and the valley at the previous day’s commission meeting. He said the move might make sense due to the different needs in different areas of the county. Fleming said the commission would be more involved with the project in the future.

Paula Brown, of the Silver Creek Homeowners Association, said that residents were so upset with higher rates and the confused planning process that they were considering a boycott of local businesses.

“They want low rates but they want the best plan,” she said. “They’re very emotional. As a group, they have threatened to boycott any Pocahontas County businesses, saying, ‘if they can’t get their act together, we’re not going to buy furniture for the condo, we’re not going to do this, we’re not going to do that, we’re not going to buy fuel in this county, we’re just going to do our stuff and go,’” she added.

The PSD also heard comments from several area residents.

Sean Vetter, science teacher at Elkins Middle School and member of Trout Unlimited, said he preferred a solution in which waste produced on the mountain was treated on the mountain and not transported closer to the headwaters of the Elk River.

Vetter said many of his students ask him why previous generations had done so much damage to the environment.

“I tell them different reasons that things have gone wrong – ignorance of the ecosystem, apathy towards our natural world and for shortsighted gains,” he said. “And here we are again, with yet another chance to be ignorant, apathetic and greedy. I would like to be able to tell my students, for once, that we all got together and did the right thing for a change – how we got it right on the Elk and up at Snowshoe. I would like to tell them that very much.”

Eight Rivers Safe Development (ERSD), a non-profit group formed to encourage conservation and promotion of karst, cave, and karst landscapes, also supports an alternative in which waste produced on the mountain is treated on the mountain.

Tolly Peuleche read a letter from George Phillips, president of ERSD, which stated the group’s support for alternative 9, which incorporates a membrane-technology plant on the mountain but no sewage treatment plant in the valley.

“Eight Rivers Safe Development will demand that a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be prepared for any site or alternatives that are pursued for further study by the Pocahontas Public Service District,” the letter states.

Kermit Friel, prospective plant manager for the PSD, said many people told him they wanted the cheapest alternative which still met the requirements of the law.

“The bottom line is – they want it built, they want the cheapest rate they can have to meet all state and federal regulations,” he said. “They want a system with the least operation and maintenance costs possible, and to me, that’s a gravity-fed system to Slaty Fork,” he added.

Ralph Beckwith, proprietor of Beckwith Lumber in Slaty Fork, said the PSD would “never satisfy anybody.”
He said he had “no problem whatsoever” with a plant at Slaty Fork or at the bottom of Snowshoe Mountain.

“I’d like to see, whatever we do, be for the best of the county, but everybody has their own ax to grind and their own desires,” he said. “I hear people say ‘we came to this area because it’s the best area we could find,’ but you can’t add thousands of people to an area and it still stay the same.”

Tom Shipley, representing EHWA, said it would be irresponsible for the PSD to select a design alternative before the EHWA completed a comprehensive watershed plan for the upper Elk.

On his own behalf, Shipley upbraided the PSD for scheduling the public comment period after the relevant action item on the meeting agenda.

“The fact that the comment period you are providing is dead last on tonight’s agenda, after you discuss and take action on that which you presented at the last meeting, belies the claim that you are including the will of the people in your decision making,” he read from a prepared letter, which he presented to the PSD.

At the beginning of the meeting, Shipley and Fleming brought the scheduling issue to the attention of the PSD, which modified the agenda to place the public comments before the action item.

Shipley pointed out that the Site 7 alternative, presented to the public last month, had changed significantly since the selection of the alternative in August with the inclusion of three miles of pressurized sewer line along Route 219.

“One accident of the pipe along the river will create an unimaginable ecological disaster,” he said.

Shipley displayed photographs of underground waterfalls to the group, which he described as “God’s gift to Pocahontas County.”

Ultimately, the PSD tabled action on selection of a design alternative, and a number of other items, due to the absence of PSD president Bill Rexrode.

The PSD scheduled a meeting for February 12 at 6 p.m. at the Bartow-Durbin-Frank Fire House in Durbin to consider and act on submitting a funding request for a design alternative.