IJDC recommends controversial sewage plant be funded

Wednesday June 03, 2009
IJDC recommends controversial sewage plant be funded

Russell Holt, of Slaty Fork, front row center, speaks to the Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council funding committee at a meeting in Charleston on May 30. The committee voted to recommend funding for a sewage plant to be built on Snowshoe Drive. The PSD has requested more than $25 million for the project. G. Hamill photo

Geoff Hamill
Staff Writer

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

The committee met Friday morning at its offices in Charleston.

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

The committee briefly discussed the issue before the vote.

Mike Johnson, representing the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on the IJDC, recommended approval of the funding.

“The DEP entered into a consent decree with, then, Snowshoe utilities and, now that the transfer has taken place, the consent decree applies to the public service district,” he said. They have to do something up there to bring those ammonia limits in line with the law.”

J.D. Morgan, Director of Business Development at Snowshoe Mountain, Inc., said he agreed with the committee’s action but the project is far from final approval.

“The recommendation, I think, at this point, is the very right thing to do,” he said. “It is an application, obviously a very long public process is yet to come.”

Russell Holt, of Slaty Fork, said the he agreed with the committee decision.

“I’m in agreement,” he said. It’s compliance with state and federal law.”

Slaty Fork resident Kermit Friel displayed a map to interested persons after the committee meeting, showing the amount of development in the Snowshoe area.

The full IJDC is scheduled to take action on the recommendation at its June 3 meeting.

County commissioners David Fleming and Martin Saffer oppose the new sewage plant and authorized a commission letter to the IJDC in April requesting that funding be withheld.

Fleming plans to attend the June 3 meeting to voice the commission’s desire to stop 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.