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Parkersburg Utility Board talks overflow efforts

Customer cost could be key to extended deadline

Photo by Evan Bevins Strand Associates project manager Scott Stearns discusses a pending report on the Parkersburg Utility Board’s efforts to eliminate wet-weather overflows Wednesday at the utility’s administrative offices. At left is board member Paul Hoblitzell.

PARKERSBURG — The rates paid by customers of the Parkersburg Utility Board should be enough to show environmental authorities the utility is doing all it can to eliminate wet weather overflows, an engineer told board members Wednesday.

The utility has been working for more than a decade to meet a state-mandated goal of eliminating the infiltration of outside water into the sewer system and resulting overflows that could carry untreated sewage into public streams. The deadline for complete elimination of the overflows is the end of 2020.

“It’s unaffordable and somewhat unrealistic for a community of this age and size,” board Manager Eric Bennett said.

Scott Stearns, project manager for Strand Associates, the utility’s wastewater consultant, spoke with board members and staff Wednesday about a progress report on compliance with the order due Dec. 31, 2018. Officials plan to ask for the deadline for total elimination to be pushed back to 2030.

But if the work required to meet the deadline would push rates on customers too high, those projects might not be deemed feasible, Bennett said.

The West Virginia Division of Envioronmental Protection will consider the rates being paid by customers for water and sewer service as a percentage of the annual median household income for the area, Stearns said. Generally, 2 percent is seen as the upper limit, he said, and officials estimate the total for rates works out to about 1.7 percent.

“The affordability component is going to stop you before you completely eliminate SSOs (sanitary sewer overflows),” Stearns said.

The current sewer rates account for repayment of a loan for the nearly completed $12.8 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade.

Although overflows are down approximately 40 percent over the several years, there is still more the PUB can do to improve the situation, Stearns said. However, he does not anticipate those efforts being as expensive as the most recent project.

“The need for an increase (in rates) related to projects is assumed at this point to be smaller,” Bennett said.

The report should emphasize how the utility has focused on steps that both reduce overflows and benefit the system around the clock, rather than only during wet-weather events, Stearns said.

The capacity at the treatment plant has increased from about 12 million gallons a day to nearly 25 million, Stearns said. Higher capacity, plus upgraded pumping stations, means more water can flow through the system to the plant, reducing the chance of overflows.

Bennett said another important step if for authorities to allow the utility to make permanent some interim measures aimed at dealing with increased flow. In high-volume situations, water can bypass some processes, meaning it may not be treated to the extent it usually is but would still meet quality standards when it is released, he said.

A cost estimate for the in-depth report and necessary studies going into it is not yet available, but Bennett said it should not be as expensive as the $2 million the utility paid for the initial plan back in 1999 and 2000.

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