It appears as if the Monongalia County Commission, the Morgantown Utility Board and developer WestRidge have come up with a pretty straightforward formula to fund water and sewer improvements in the WestRidge and greater Chaplin Hill area.
They’re going to split it.
During Tuesday’s meeting of the MUB Board of Directors, the body voted to approve its share of the estimated $14,063,000 project cost, which comes out to $3,687,667.
The Monongalia County Commission is expected to approve that same amount when it meets at 10 a.m. today.
Those dollars will be put together with an equal total from WestRidge, plus $3 million approved for the project by the West Virginia Water Development Authority.
The upgrades, totaling $7,225,000 on the water side and $6,838,000 for sewer, will include the construction of a new water tank, a booster station and the boring of new water and sewer lines beneath the Monongahela River.
The work will upgrade infrastructure supporting continued developments in the areas of Westover, Osage, University Town Centre, WestRidge, Gateway, Mylan Park and Chaplin Hill Business Park.
The parties involved were initially sent back to the drawing board in December when the WDA decided to fund just $3 million of a $7 million request.
At that time, MUB had already agreed to put up just over $3.5 million while the county was in for $2,050,000 and WestRidge agreed to $1,391,500.
Now it’s an even split.
“I think it’s an excellent plan to move forward. Everyone is sharing,” MUB General Manager Mike McNulty said. “I think the returns will be excellent in the future. It’s a strong economic development in that area.”
In other MUB news, McNulty said the utility is continuing talks with the city of Westover.
“As everyone knows, the city of Westover has approached MUB to discuss the idea of MUB acquiring their sanitary sewer system and their stormwater system,” he said. “We’ve requested certain records from Westover to begin the evaluation and due diligence process. Westover has submitted some questions to us as well.”
McNulty said that once MUB is satisfied with the data collection process, a recommendation will be presented to the board.
Also on Tuesday, the board approved a number of bids, including: The purchase of a new vacuum truck from Fyda Freightliner (Pittsburgh) for $616,615; the painting of South Park water tank No. 1 by M&A Coatings (Eighty Four, Pa.) for $486,500; the annual stone contract to Greer Limestone (Morgantown) for $272,950 and a horizontal drilling project on Collins Ferry Road to Synder & Sons (Morgantown) for $43,000.
MUB’s March 14 meeting will be held at The Cranberry Hotel, in Cheat Lake, in order to roll out preliminary plans for an expansion of the Cheat Lake wastewater treatment plant.
