MORGANTOWN — Barring any permitting hang-ups, the Morgantown Utility Board Upper Popenoe Run stream and sewer project will begin this year.
MUB Senior Engineer Ken Hacker said construction will likely begin sometime after Nov. 1 and continue about six months, concluding next spring.
With final designs now in hand, MUB and its project team, including E.L. Robinson and AllStar Ecology, returned to the Wiles Hill Community Center Thursday evening to give the neighborhood a chance to peruse the plans and ask questions.
An initial community meeting on this topic was held at the same facility back in January.
The project, currently estimated at about $2.6 million, will actually be two separate jobs running simultaneously — the restoration of the upper portion of the Popenoe Run stream and the replacement of an undersized, 60-plus year old, broken clay sewer line that runs parallel to the stream and has become exposed in places due to erosion.
The work will stretch from the stadium parking lot side of Willowdale Road and run between Richland Avenue and Randolph Road to Hoffman Avenue, where it bends and runs behind the homes on Amherst Road to Stewart Street, near Shorty Anderson’s Auto Service.
The project will also include sewer and stormwater improvements in the area of Hoffman Avenue and Bradley Street.
Funding for the work will come by way of $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars from both the city of Morgantown and Monongalia County. MUB will pick up the remainder.
Hacker noted this project has been on MUB’s to-do list for at least 20 years. It became possible with the distribution of ARPA funds. It became a priority in the wake of historic flooding in Morgantown on June 13 and July 29 of 2021.
The actual construction will likely impact just over 50 properties along the stream.
The final stage of the work will be landscaping and a replanting effort that will place more than 200 new trees and other vegetation along the reshaped stream.
But between now and then, MUB General Manager Mike McNulty reiterated, there’s probably going to be a bit of a mess.
“I just want to remind everybody, we’re going to be in your back yards,” he said, echoing his comments from January. “We’ll get to know each other very well.”
