MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown Utility Board is hopeful a Brownfield Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency could lead to additional recreation along the city’s riverfront — albeit temporarily.
During Tuesday’s meeting of the MUB Board of Directors, Matt Ford of Greenbrier Environmental Group explained the utility is seeking the maximum grant award of $500,000 out of the $13 million in brownfield bucks to be distributed by the EPA this year.
He also explained this is the third consecutive year MUB has entered the highly competitive grant process to assist with the cleanup of the former Dinsmore Tire property (195 Don Knotts Boulevard), which MUB purchased for $743,000 in January 2019.
MUB General Manager Mike McNulty said one of the leading ideas for the property in the short term is to create parking and an additional river access for recreational watercraft, like kayaks and canoes.
Ultimately, however, there’s a specific reason MUB purchased the 1.26 acre parcel right next to its water treatment facility.
“We thought that would be an important piece of property to have to expand the water treatment facility whenever that time comes,” McNulty said. “That’s exactly why we purchased it.”
He went on to explain that once plant expansion begins, recreational access through the property would have to cease.
A brownfield is a property that is complicated by the presence or potential presence of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants.
In other news, MUB leadership conceded that construction of the new Cobun Creek dam will not hit the utility’s stated goal of reaching its final height this year.
Assistant General Manager and Chief Engineer Jim Fetty said contractor Kanawha Stone will continue to finish up at the site, but earth moving in terms of the dam is pretty much done for the winter.
“It’s very disappointing. Our hope was to get it up this year. That’s not going to happen. We’re still about 22 feet from the top, which is not a lot of material, but it has to be the right conditions,” Fetty said.
Fetty has stressed on multiple occasions the importance of getting the dam to height this construction season in order to allow winter to eat into a settlement period that can last hundreds of days.
He said the portion of the dam in place will begin settling over the winter.
“So when we do get to the top, the settlement period at that point is not as long,” Fetty said, adding that the hope is MUB can still start filling the new 370 million gallon Flegal Reservoir in 2022.
All told, the dam will be some 400 feet thick at its base, 800 feet wide and 70 feet tall, and comprised of approximately 500,000 cubic yards of clay-rich soil.
The project has been substantially behind schedule.
In January, MUB pushed the completion date from this winter to June 2022, and put Kanawha Stone on the hook for all engineering costs tied to the delay.
The dam, reservoir and raw water pipeline is a $50 million project.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
