MORGANTOWN — Morgantown Utility Board (MUB) General Manager Tim Ball recently offered updates on a number of the utility’s ongoing projects, including the construction of the George B. Flegal Dam and Reservoir and upgrades to the utility’s wastewater treatment plant.
As for the reservoir, Ball said MUB recently negotiated for the final portion of right-of-way needed for the construction of the new secondary water source and the raw-water pipeline that will connect it to MUB’s treatment facility.
“Every property right needed has been successfully obtained through negotiation,” Ball said, explaining that a condemnation request currently before the courts regarding that last property will be withdrawn.
Ball went on to say that the reservoir site — along Cobun Creek Road, between Grafton Road and Kingwood Pike — has been cleared of timber, and Kanawha Stone has largely completed the relocation of Cobun Creek Road.
“All they need to do now is surface the road whenever the weather allows them to do that,” he said.
Additionally, D&M Contracting has placed 1,900 feet of 30-inch raw-water pipeline in the ground and is in the process of boring a 42-inch channel below Interstate 68.
It is anticipated the $47 million project — including reservoir, dam and pipeline — will be completed in late 2020 and provide a 30-day emergency water supply of 370 million gallons.
Also slated for completion in 2020 is the $101 million upgrade and expansion of MUB’s Star City wastewater treatment plant.
While Ball said the overall timeline is still intact, the utility plans to alter some internal deadlines in order to allow contractors to clear up a growing pile of change orders, which represent work that has been added to or removed from an original project plan.
“For most construction projects nationwide of this kind, you can expect change orders to be in the neighborhood of about four or five percent. Our track record is closer to two percent, and quite often lower,” Ball said. “Remember, that’s a $100 million project, so if we’re at our two percent level, that’s $2 million.”
The overhaul will result in new control rooms and labs, a new digester for solids processing, upgrades to critical electrical equipment, and the addition of a modernized treatment process using membrane bio reactors.
Ball said a temporary operators control center has been set up and the demolition of the old headworks building is under way.
He went on to say that contractors are in the process of moving a section of 42-inch pipe to make room for the construction of the new digester.
“That digester is probably the most notable structure that you’ll see driving by, across the [Star City] bridge,” Ball said.
The reservoir and treatment plant projects are being funded through customer rate increases that went into effect in the summer of 2016.
Lastly, in regard to a water line extension on Rockley Road, in the Cheat Lake area, Ball said 6,400 feet of pipe has been installed out of a total of 8,100.
“Based on weather delays, we expect them to be completed by early-to-mid February,” Ball said. “Of course, that’s pipeline only. Paving will have to wait until the spring.”
The project, which will provide water to about 20 customers, is being funded largely through equal parts grant and loan from the West Virginia Infrastructure Jobs and Development Council (IJDC).
The loan will be repaid through surcharges on the Rockley Road customers’ water bills.
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