MORGANTOWN — The proposed consolidation of Cheat View Public Service District’s waterworks system into Morgantown Utility Board’s received the blessing of the Public Service Commission’s staff, Utilities Division and legal team this week.
The three groups pooled brief memos of support into a group filing.
Legal staff wrote, “The consolidation ensures the customers continued maintenance of water facilities, and provides a mechanism to encourage and promote continued growth in the Cheat View area of Monongalia County. MUB is certainly qualified to provide the expertise and knowledge to efficiently own, operate and maintain the District’s potable water system, and Technical Staff believes it is in the best interest of the District’s customers for MUB to consolidate the District‘s water system with MUB’s waterworks system.”
MUB and Cheat View filed for PSC approval of the merger on Dec. 11, shortly after receiving the approval of the Monongalia County Commission. Cheat View reached out to MUB after two of its longtime leaders, Glenn Staddon and Allen Colebank, died in 2023.
MUB serves about 27,800 customers throughout Mon County while Cheat View serves about 4,300 Cheat Lake-area customers. As the staff memos noted, MUB already does the billing and collecting and meter reading for Cheat View PSD. It also provides the treated water that Cheat View re-sells to its customers.
The two utilities set the formal PSC process in motion in May, by jointly seeking an Operating and Maintenance Agreement, allowing MUB to assume all operations of Cheat View’s system. The PSC approved the agreement on Oct. 20.
A November asset purchase agreement between the two utilities shows that MUB will buy all of Cheat View’s assets. Cheat View has no outstanding bond-related debt.
EMAIL: dbeard@dominionpost.com
TWEET @DominionPostWV
