PUB gets outline of sewer project
$16M effort likely to require rate hike
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PARKERSBURG - Members of the Parkersburg Utility Board heard details about an estimated $16 million project to increase the system's capacity to deal with infiltration of outside water into its sanitary sewer system during their regular meeting Tuesday.
The project would eliminate two pumping stations and replace them with new intercepting sewer lines. It likely will require an increase in sewer rates, though no projection has been made about how much of a hike would be needed.
The utility has been working for nearly two decades to meet state and federal mandates to increase capacity and cut down on infiltration to reduce overflows that could result in untreated sewage reaching public streams.
In a Zoom conference with the board, Strand Associates project manager Scott Stearns said installing interceptor lines at a greater depth would remove the need to upgrade pump stations at Kanawha and Summers streets.
"It was tens of millions of dollars" to improve the stations, which were built in the late 1960s, Stearns said. "This is going to be a decision that pays dividends for the Utility Board and its rate payers for years and years and years."
The upgrades to the stations had been projected to last about 20 years, but the interceptors would be good for longer. PUB Manager Eric Bennett noted there is much less maintenance required for the sewer lines.
"A pump station is a continual electrical cost, maintenance cost," he said.
The Little Kanawha interceptor is expected to be the most expensive part of the project, with an estimated cost of $12.8 million.
That line would parallel the existing interceptor from the Kanawha Street station site to the Elite Sports Center on First Avenue, said Andrew Craven, project engineer with Strand. But rather than employ more expensive techniques to place a parallel line underneath features like the Fort Neal Skate Park, the rest of the line would replace the existing interceptor to the PUB's First Avenue pump station.
The new Neal Run interceptor is projected to cost nearly $3 million. It's planned as a full replacement of the existing interceptor line, from the Summers Street station north beneath Camden Avenue and across Neal Run. Much of the route is surrounded by poor soil and other obstacles, Craven said.
"There's not enough room adjacent to that existing interceptor to install a parallel interceptor," he said.
A trenchless technique will be used to replace the line running under Camden Avenue, so the road should not need to be closed, Craven said.
Both lines will flow to the First Avenue Pump Station, for which an additional $350,000 in piping modifications is anticipated as part of the project.
No action was taken by the board on the project Tuesday. Bennett said Strand will go ahead and submit an application to West Virginia's Clean Water State Revolving Fund to get on the list for a potential loan in 2021.
"You're not committing to do the project," Stearns said. "Essentially you're finding out if (the fund) has dollars for you."
A design agreement with Strand is expected to be considered by the board in January.
"This thing could be bid in the fall of 2021, initial construction in 2021, and then construction would be complete in 2023," Stearns said.
Any proposed rate increase would be sent to Parkersburg City Council for approval. The last sewer rate increase was approved in 2014 and went into effect in phases.
In other business, the board voted 4-0 -- with Mayor Tom Joyce, its chairman, absent -- to accept the utility's audit report, prepared by accounting firm Suttle & Stalnaker.
"It was a clean audit," PUB Comptroller Erin Hall said. "We had no findings, no non-compliance issues."
Board member Paul Hoblitzell said the staff should be commended for the audit results.
The board also voted 3-0 to approve bids of $26,104 for a Ford Ranger pickup truck from Matheny Ford and $31,186 for a half-ton pickup truck from Matheny Motor Truck Co. Hoblitzell abstained from the votes.
The vehicles will replace a 2001 truck with more than 132,000 miles and a 2004 van with expensive rust issues, respectively, Bennett said.