Still waiting for water

Governor expected to make decision on Wood funding

By JEFFREY SAULTON, jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com
DEERWALK — For more than a decade, residents in the Riser Ridge and Laurel Fork area have been waiting for word on when they will have a clean and reliable water supply.

During a meeting Thursday at Deerwalk Volunteer Fire Department, they learned it will take a while longer.

Erin Thacker, grant coordinator with the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council, said another grant proposal will be submitted for small cities block grant funding for the Wood County project. She said the grant will be submitted in June. From there it will go to the West Virginia Development Office and then to Gov. Joe Manchin.

The grant has a better chance this time because local officials are also trying to line up other funding for the project, Thacker said.

“We are close to getting a United States Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service loan and grant,” she said. “This will help since the development office does not like to be the first to put their money in a project. If they see we have other funds ready, they will be more likely to pick this project.”

Thacker said the grant proposal is still open for people to submit personal letters. Several asked if there was a way they could submit reports of water samples and if that would help.

Todd Grinstead, manager of Claywood Park Public Service District, said reports would help to strengthen the proposal because they have documentation on how people in the project area have to truck in water, collect rainwater and have other water problems. However, he said it would be up to individuals to have their water tested. The PSD laboratory is not set up to do the water testing they need.

About 30 people attended the meeting. They said several wells have collapsed, many are not reliable and others are unusable as the weather warms up.

“We have been waiting for 10 years,” said one woman. “Everyone here represents at least four other people. The reason so many are not here is they are upset they have had to wait for so many years.”

Grinstead said the PSD and the regional council are doing all they can to bring water to the area along U.S. 50 East. Beyond gathering information and submitting the proposal, he said there is little they can do.

“It’s not that we don’t want to do this,” he said. “It takes time.”

Thacker said the project is the only one from the region and that will help. She said the Wood County Commission will vote on forwarding the grant proposal next week.

Residents said they were upset that projects such as the Jessica Lynch project in Wirt County have been funded and are under construction and they are still waiting. Grinstead said the Wirt County project has been waiting for money for 10 to 15 years and the name was changed recently; it is not a new project.

Thacker said the governor will most likely make a decision on the project in January or February. The only communication the regional council receives on a project is if there is a mistake, she said. The agency never knows when a project is rejected or approved.

“We learn about it from the newspaper like you do,” she said.

Plans call for the construction of approximately 36 miles of six-, four-, and two-inch waterline, a 388,000-gallon water storage tank, a hydropneumatic booster, one booster station, and equipment to serve about 351 new customers.

Proposed extension areas include Borland Springs-Ewing Ridge, Riser Ridge-Volcano, Shiloh-Tallyho-Laurel Fork, Upper Stillwell-Montgomery Hill, Jerico-Doyle, Dry Run, and Oak Grove Ridge in Wood County and Grieves Run in Wirt County.

Residents asked if it would qualify as a self-help project such as recent ones in the Lubeck PSD or in North Jackson County PSD. Grinstead said the project is too large in scope. Most self-help projects are usually for a dozen or fewer families and can be expensive, he said.