IJDC funding committee recommends Snowshoe Drive sewage plant money

This is the same funding committee that voted unanimously in 2007 to provide the initial $2.5 MM funding to the project despite the objections of Eight Rivers Safe Development and many others who attended the committee meeting at that time.

Our comments fell on deaf ears in 2007 as did the County Commission's request with withhold funding in 2009.

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Friday May 29, 2009
IJDC funding committee recommends Snowshoe Drive sewage plant money
Geoff Hamill
Staff Writer

The funding committee of the West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council (IJDC) voted unanimously to recommend approval of the funding request for the planned sewage treatment plant on Snowshoe Drive.

The committee met Friday morning at its offices in Charleston.

The full IJDC will meet on May 6 to act on the recommendation. It is very rare for the council to act contrary to a committee recommendation.

The committee briefly discussed the issue before the vote.

Mike Johnson, who represents the Department of Environmental Protection on the IJDC, recommended approval of the funding.

“They’re operating under a consent order,” he said. “They have to do something.”

The Pocahontas County Public Service District (PSD) requested more than $25 million in grants and loans for the project.

The funding committee also recommended approval of a PSD modification to the funding application for the Bartow-Frank-Durbin water project. The PSD had modified the application to include 50 percent loans and 50 percent grants in order to keep rate hikes as low as possible.

More to follow in the print edition of The Pocahontas Times.