IJDC asked not to fund sewage treatment plant

Thursday March 05, 2009
IJDC asked not to fund sewage treatment plant
Pamela Pritt
Editor

The county commission reversed more than eight years of procession toward a regional sewage treatment plant that would serve Snowshoe Mountain Resort and a part of the surrounding valley by sending a letter to the Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council asking that the project not be funded.

The latest of blows dealt to the embattled Slaty Fork Wastewater Treatment Facility is meant to bring the project to a halt, said county commissioner David Fleming.

Fleming read a prepared statement, acknowledging the failures of the county commission including the project’s “purpose and motivation.” Fleming said that even after the commission decided not to use its right of eminent domain to take a portion of the historic Sharp Farm for the project, it failed again and “seemed resigned to our shortcomings”and did not focus on the answer to one essential question.

“What is the need for and the purpose of this project?” he asked. “We have to answer that. We have to work on that answer together, as a community. We have to know that answer before we can proceed with a project of this magnitude.

“We might find there isn’t an answer after all,” he said. “It is my intention that things stop. This is the first step to bringing a pause to this project.”

One answer Fleming did not have, however, was how the Pocahontas County Public Service District will operate Snowshoe Mountain Resort’s sewage treatment facility without IJDC funds.

PSD attorney Tom Michael said Tuesday afternoon, it still could.

However, he said, the issue will be environmental.

“The issue is ammonia,” Michael said. “The plant that’s up there now can’t treat sewage effluent to the point where ammonia limits are acceptable, which is what started this process ten years ago.”

Michael said the IJDC can vote to fund the project anyway.

“The county commission is a voice in the process, but they don’t have any kind of standing to stop the project,” he said. “At some point, the DEP won’t care what anybody wants.”

Fleming said he wanted the commission to look into other alternatives for a public service district or districts to address sewer and water infrastructure needs for Pocahontas County, as well.

Commission president Martin Saffer said the county commission had come a long way in the last several years in responding to the citizenry.

“What you’re suggesting here is to siphon the gas out of the car so that it doesn’t go any farther down the road until such time as we know where the car ought to be going,” Saffer said. “I think we do need to do that.”

Saffer said the project has not been fueled enough by the thoughts and input of the people whom the project is really going to affect.

Fleming said he had spoken with W.D. Smith and had every reason to believe the IJDC would honor the commission’s request.

He further questioned the ever-increasing rate that the system’s users would be paying—now estimated to be nearly $70. Site selection is yet another hangup, Fleming said, and the “purpose and behavior of the PSD is inconsistent, at best.”

“I don’t think they have a full grasp of how to handle this project,” Fleming continued. In his statement, Fleming said the PSD had “deferred too much” to engineers, attorneys and others.