MORGANTOWN — The Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners set a special meeting for 5 p.m. on March 21 in order to vote on the finalized agreement allowing the Morgantown Utility Board to begin its remediation work in White Park.
The agreement will be on Morgantown City Council’s agenda the following evening.
Danielle Trumble, vice president of BOPARC and the city’s deputy mayor, said she’s hopeful MUB will have approved the agreement by that point, but she’s tired of waiting.
“That’s giving MUB a week, plenty of time for them to notice a [special] meeting and do so. Or if they don’t do that, I would like to recommend to the city that we file a breach of contract notice. We could do either one of those at a meeting,” she said. “They’ve had plenty of time.”
When it was suggested she would have to run her suggestion past the city attorney, she responded “I have.”
BOPARC was actually set to approve the agreement during Wednesday’s meeting but was advised against doing so after the MUB board took no action on it during its meeting on Tuesday evening.
Morgantown Mayor and BOPARC President Jenny Selin summed up the tone of Wednesday’s discussion.
“We’re very hopeful this will happen soon, but it’s very disappointing that we didn’t figure this out,” she said.
The issue dates back to 2019, when MUB — after incorrectly assuming it owned property in White Park — marked a number of trees for removal in order to run a raw water pipeline through the park to connect its new emergency secondary water source being constructed along Cobun Creek — the George B. Fleagel Dam and Reservoir — to the utility’s water treatment plant.
After several months of, at times, contentious discourse that included numerous public meetings and negotiations between the city, BOPARC and MUB, an agreement was announced Nov. 1, 2019, the date set by MUB as the deadline to end negotiations.
Per that agreement, MUB would have to build a new trail through the park. The utility would also have to provide an annual maintenance budget for the trail and replant two trees for every one removed.
While MUB long ago completed its placement of the pipeline through the park, none of the agreed upon remediation work has begun as disagreements have since arisen as to exactly what MUB is responsible for under that 2019 agreement.
The White Park Pipeline Licensing Agreement addendum now making its rounds before MUB, BOPARC and the city would spell out the final details that would allow it to happen.
