Marlinton Storm Sewer Project Could Cost Up To Two Million Dollars

Marlinton, WV – At its regular meeting on February 9th, the Marlinton Town Council received an update on the continuing Storm Sewer Project. Dave Sharp of Protesta Engineering says that after reviewing plans and looking over the ground, he projects that the total cost of completing the entire project at between 1.75 and 2 Million dollars. The next step is funding and Dave has a meeting on the 2nd of March with the West Virginia Dept of Environmental Protection to review the project.

“Since the DEP is one of the likely possibilities for funding, we’ve found that if we can sit down with those individuals before hand, make them familiar with the project, get some feed back from them as to whether they think their funding will fit our project or if there’s anything that needs to be added or removed from the project, usually it’s beneficial for everybody” says Sharp. “That way when they see it come from Infrastructure Council [WV Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council], they’re already familiar with it and can make their recommendations more easily.”

Dave says that it’s at least a year and a half after funding has been identified until construction can begin. As a result of looking over the ground, Mr. Sharp identified one major problem that needs correction now. A manhole at the west end of the Rte 39 Bridge has been displaced, and could leak water into the sewer system.

The Mayor is aware of the problem and says that local contractors could make the repairs. Council asked the Mayor to get estimates for the repair. If the low estimate is less than $5,000.00, the Council authorized the Mayor to proceed with the repairs.

Robin Mutscheller, the Flood Protection Coordinator says that flood protection for Marlinton is still in the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps is waiting on a Record of Decisions to come back to them before moving forward. The Corps has 1.5 million dollars on hand to continue working to get everything in place to sign the agreement to proceed. Once that agreement is signed, Robin says that local matching funds will be released to proceed with real estate work.

Mayor Dennis Driscoll said that overall, January was a quiet month. The sewer plant is working as it should be and they are waiting on the DEP to let them know what if anything else needs to be done to have the plant in compliance. The Mayor then addressed the water lines.

“In Good News, for the first time in a long time there are no leaks, no major leaks in that we can detect in the water system” says Dennis. “We’re using what we should be, you can tell because when we stop pumping to when we start pumping again, it’s a reasonable amount of water that’s going out through the system.”

In other action, the Council passed the first reading of the New Garbage ordinance. Several minor sections were referred back to the committee for clarification.

They designated the 2nd Wednesday of each month as Electronics Pick up day. Residents can call in to have old TV’s, computer monitors and the like picked up. The town will arrange to transport those items to the designated area at the land fill.

They also approved a revision to the employee handbook. The revision will allow an employee to donate annual leave to another employee to be used as sick leave.

The next meeting of the Marlinton Town Council is March 9th at the municipal building.