MORGANTOWN — Morgantown Utility Board General Manager Mike McNulty said folks living in the Upper Popenoe Run stream and sewer project area should expect a knock on their doors.
“E.L. Robinson Engineering has hired a right of way agent. They are in town, and they are going door to door to all the homeowners where we’re going to need to acquire an easement,” McNulty recently told the utility’s board of directors.
The project, currently estimated at about $2.6 million, remains on schedule to begin in about three months.
The work 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.
MUB anticipates the actual construction will likely impact just over 50 properties along the stream.
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.
In other MUB news, Communications Director Chris Dale said the final design process is underway for a roughly $30 million expansion of the Cheat Lake wastewater treatment facility.
Construction on that project is expected to begin by the end of 2024.
As previously reported, the existing treatment facility is exceeding 90% of its designed capacity, and the number of customers connecting to it historically grows an average of 3.75% annually.
The facility will be expanded onto a 12.7-acre property behind the existing plant and between Sunset Beach Road and the Chestnut Ridge Church parking lot.
MUB purchased that land for $1.4 million in 2018.
Funding for the project will come by way of a $22,727,040 Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan at 2.75% over 20 years. MUB expects to receive $1.25 million in loan forgiveness for green initiatives included in the project.
Funding will also include a West Virginia Water Development Authority Economic Enhancement Grant of $5,994,260.
