Andy Hartleben, Project Coordinator for the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council, appeared Thursday before the Wood County Commission with Mike Davis of Burgess and Niple Inc. and Eric Bennett, General Manager of the Parkersburg Utility Board to get the commission to give their approval for a bid to do the Hill Avenue Sewer project that has been in the works for a number of years. With this approval, construction is expected to begin soon on a sewer line project that will serve 26 homes and one church along Hill Avenue just outside the city of Parkersburg. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG – Work could begin soon on the sewer project for Hill Avenue after the Wood County Commission gave their approval Thursday for a bid for the project.

Representatives from the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council, the engineering firm of Burgess and Niple and the Parkersburg Utility Board appeared before the commission to get its approval for the bid to install sewer lines along Hill Avenue.

Andy Hartleben, project coordinator for the Regional Council, presented a bid of $881,698.50 from Virco Contracting of Charleston to the commission for their approval.

The project has been in the works for a number of years with the goal to provide sanitary sewer service to an underserved part of the county which includes around 26 residences and a church, officials said.

“We are extending sewer lines to some folks who are unsewered along Hill Avenue, which is in the Marrtown area,” said Mike Davis of Burgess and Niple, the design engineers on the project. “It took a little while to get here.”

The property owners will be responsible for hooking into the sewer line once it is placed.

“We will stub out to allow the homeowner to go in and connect,” Davis said. “It will be up to the homeowner to physically connect their discharge line into the sewer line.”

The process took several years as there were a couple rounds of funding, the COVID pandemic and state and federal regulations to deal with, as well as other considerations before the money was available, officials said.

The Wood County Commission is a fiscal agent for federal grant money for this project since it is outside the city limits of Parkersburg, so their approval was needed. The PUB will be the agency who actually runs the service and does its maintenance. The commission unanimously approved the bid.

Eric Bennett, manager of the PUB, said many of the homeowners are looking forward to getting the project started.

“No more leach fields or straight pipes,” Commission President Blair Couch said of systems in place for people without sewer systems.

Davis said they have not worked with Virco Contracting before but they have called the references the company had and everything came back good on their work.

“The contractor is ready to go,” Davis said. “All of the permits are in place.

“(The contractor said Thursday morning) they would be ready in three weeks.”

The project is expected to take 240 days to complete.

Funding for the project came from the federal Community Development Block Grant program through the federal Housing and Urban Development agency with the money distributed by the state. The funding covered the cost of the engineering, planning and construction for the project.

The Hill Avenue project was originally combined with another roject to provide sanitary sewer service to an underserved part of the county which includes multiple homes along Marrtown Road. It will include sanitary sewer lines, pump stations and more.

Bennett said the Hill Avenue and Marrtown Road projects were separated in the hopes of being able to better secure funding for the two smaller projects.

The Marrtown Road project is still being developed with Burgess and Niple working on a design, Bennett said.

That project is expected to cover 50 residences and the Rivers Complex, a business complex on Star Avenue.

Officials said they had $2.5 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for that project and it will require additional funds that will likely come from the state.

In other business, Gerald Brandsasse of the Wood County Sheriff’s Office appeared before the commission to discuss applying to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals for funding to update security cameras around county court facilities and purchase some new metal detectors to replace aging equipment.

He had previously applied for funding that totaled between $105,000 to $235,000 over the past couple of years. He was told that he was asking for too much by someone familiar with how that funding worked.

This year, Brandsasse is asking for three walk-through metal detectors which is $23,940, but he did estimates for one or two, in case the amount was a concern.

He wants to utilize one for the Wood County Resiliency Center for when it will be operated as a temporary court facility.

Brandsasse credits court officers with being able to do thorough checks in addition to the metal detectors that have helped keep the facilities secure.

The commission gave their approval for him to apply for the funding.

Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard is looking at costs of camera systems to update technology they have in place to provide better coverage of courtrooms and around court and county facilities.

Officials also talked about having a court officer hired and stationed at the Wood County Courthouse to provide a security presence in the building, with money provided from each county office to pay that person. The county had an officer like that years ago, and officials said they want to bring that position back to deal immediately with unruly people who have come in from time to time.

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com