Progress in the ARC Pocahontas Broadband Project

The wheels of government have a reputation for moving slowly, and a perfect example of this is the Pocahontas County Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) Broadband grant project. It was approved in September of 2021 is just now finally to a point where a contractor for the construction is about to be selecte d. The project will install about 49 miles of aerial broadband fiber bringing high-speed internet access to an estimated 1,011 households and several dozen businesses in Pocahontas County, with CityNet being the Internet service provider. The project will begin at 4^th Ave and 11^th Street in Marlinton; run East along route 39 through Huntersville to Minnehaha Springs, where it will go North on Route 92 to Dunmore. Another leg of fiber will run North from Route 39 onto Route 28 near Huntersville and terminate somewhere near Seneca State Park.

The ARC had originally projected a completion date of December of 2023, however required studies, red tape, negotiations with First Energy and Frontier over using their poles and other bureaucratic requirements made that a very unrealistic estimate.

At a special County Commission meeting on July 8^th, Luke Van Blaricom of the Thompson & Litton Company (T&L,) which is the engineering company for the project, opened, and presented to the commissioners two construction bids received as a result the published advertisement. Those were:

1. Quanta Telecommunication Solutions, LLC, in the amount of $1,800,000.
2. New River Electrical Company’s bid of $2,307,597.76

Van Blaricom said the New River Electrical price was more than T&L’s engineering construction estimate, while the Quanta estimate came in under T&L’s construction estimate. He also said that he needed to take the bid documents back to his office to determine if they met all the bid requirements. The commissioners seemed to be receptive to approving the lower bid, but wanted to wait to see if it met the requirements. The commissioners are expected to formerly announce the winning bid at their July 15^th meeting, which they said will most likely be the lowest cost bid.

At the July 10^th Pocahontas County Broadband Council meeting, Brian Tew, also of T&L, said that both bids did meet all the bid requirements, but the Quanta bid was about $90,000 below the T&L construction cost estimate, while the New River bid was higher.

Tew said that once the bid is formally awarded by the commissioners, they will sign the contract, which will trigger the ARC’s mandatory 60-to-90-day bid hold, and that will be followed by the start of the construction. Tew said T&L will be doing on-site progress visits during the construction to ensure that everything is going well. He added that having worked with Quanta before, we can expect that they will probably finish earlier than T&L had originally estimated. Mike Holstine concurred that things will likely happen quickly once the commission approves the construction contract, and that the ARC’s bid hold might even be shortened.

Ruthanna Beezley said that the Commission had set aside American Rescue Plan funding for overages but those funds must be expended by December 2026. Tew suggested that the commission hold on to that money as long as possible because typically there are last minute overrun expenses added on to these projects because some utility poles may require extra work on them to make them ready to receive the fiber installation.

Regarding the BEAD Project, CityNet is refining its application, with the applications opening now and closing on July 20^th. Holstine said there will then be a public comment period in August.

Melissa O’Brien of CityNet said that they are starting to build their backbone fiber line down US Route 219 and expect to have it complete by June of 2026.