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County seeks PUB help for Boreman utilities

The Wood County Commission is asking the Parkersburg Utility Board for help getting water and sewer service to Fort Boreman Park. (File Photo)

PARKERSBURG — The Wood County Commission is asking the Parkersburg Utility Board for help getting water and sewer service to Fort Boreman Park.

When the park was built in 2007, water and sewer lines were constructed in anticipation of development atop Fort Boreman Hill. But they have never been connected to utilities, utility board Manager Eric Bennett said.

“It’s just taken longer than anybody really anticipated,” he said.

Bennett provided board members with a copy of a letter from the commissioners during Tuesday’s utility board meeting.

“Providing this vital infrastructure would not only be a major improvement to the park itself, but would also mean additional marketability of the neighboring property and improve the opportunity for future development on Fort Boreman,” says the letter, signed by all three commissioners.

Commissioner Bob Tebay said having sewer would eliminate the expense of emptying the septic tank below the restroom, while the water connection could provide water fountains.

“It’d make it much handier,” he said.

Local developer Pat Minnite Sr. purchased 175 acres on the hill in 2014 and announced plans to develop residential, retail, restaurant, business and entertainment components on the land, as well as a planned baseball stadium. No facilities have been constructed at this point.

“We have no public plans in the works for Boreman at the moment, but any improvement to existing infrastructure is always helpful,” Pat Minnite Jr., managing partner of the PM Company, said Tuesday.

Bennett said the PUB can help the county explore funding options such as grants or loans to build the infrastructure that would tie in to its service. Plans to expand sewer service into the Marrtown area could reduce the distance between the park’s hookups and existing infrastructure, he said.

In other business at Tuesday’s utility board meeting:

∫ Comptroller Erin Hall announced the utility had received a clean audit for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

“We had no compliance issues and no findings,” she said.

∫ The board voted 5-0 to amend its leak adjustment policy — which can lower a customer’s bill in the event of a leak so they’re not paying for water that wasn’t treated — to reflect changes recommended by the West Virginia Public Service Commission. The vote came after a brief closed, executive session because the commission’s review of the policy came as part of a customer complaint filed against the utility.

“They (the PSC) had issues with some of the verbiage,” Bennett said. “The changes are minimal.”

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