Rigby Responds To Thrasher Engineering About Pocahontas Regional Sewer Plant

Snowshoe, WV – David Rigby, President of Waste Water Management Inc. offers more detail on his plan to renovate and upgrade existing systems at Snowshoe to meet WV DEP requirements. In a letter to Thrasher Engineering sent in June, Rigby maintains that the needed work could be done for 14 million dollars, far less than the 26 million figure quoted by Thrasher engineer Jonathan Carpenter. Snowshoe homeowner and developer David Litsey presented the letter along with other documentation at the last Pocahontas County Public Service District meeting on July 15th.

Rigby says his approach to any project keeps two key issues in mind – his responsibility to consider the environmental stewardship of any proposal, and his fiduciary responsibility to both his client and the rate payers. He also offers some caveats for his earlier proposal –

his numbers were not based on flow data from the existing plants

his estimate for the concrete prices may have been lower than actual

and because he didn’t have data provided by the PSD, he was relying on information provided by local citizens.

After speaking with Carpenter, Rigby was able to get the flow data he needed to update his proposal. He offers the following recommendations.

At Silver Creek, he would not construct a new plant because he says the current plant has ample capacity to handle the flow. He would consider modifications to improve performance and possibly a larger equalization tank if needed for peak winter flows. He says if a developer wishes to construct additional wings at the Silver Creek Lodge, they should pay for the necessary upgrades.

At Snowshoe Village, Rigby would install a 3 compartment wastewater treatment plant including sludge digestion, sludge dewatering, UV disinfection, continued use of existing filters and build a new control building for the plant. If additional cooling of effluent is required, he would clean up and convert the existing lagoon into a cooling wetland prior to discharge to Cupp Run.

Rigby also recommends building a three chamber SBR treatment plant at the Linwood location. It would be smaller in capacity than the plant proposed by Thrasher Engineering. Again, he says future expansion of the plant should be at the expense of the developer, not the rate payers.

Rigby says his plan provides cost savings and environmental protection by eliminating the pumping of Silver Creek sewage up and over the mountain and the steep slope gravity line between the Village plant and the Linwood plant.

His total estimate for this work is 14 million. Paying for it is another problem. Rigby suggests one possible solution may be to impose a surcharge or levy on lift tickets to capture the cost of sewage treatment resulting from guest skiers in the winter time, a proposal that may not sit well with the resort.

This will be a topic of discussion at the next Pocahontas Public Service District meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, July 27th at 7pm at the Durbin Fire House.