Director of Emergency Management for Wood County Sam Scalise, far left, and Wood County 911 Director Dale McEwuen, second from left, discuss updates regarding the Peoples Cartage fire at the Wood County Commission meeting Thursday. (Photo by Gretchen Dowler)

PARKERSBURG — At their regular meeting Thursday, the Wood County Commission received updates on local tourism and the Peoples Cartage warehouse fire.

Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis updated the commission on how tourism has been in the Mid-Ohio Valley so far this summer.

“Traffic on Blennerhassett Island has gone up by 50%, and the CVB has gone from seeing 1,300 last summer to 2,600 this summer,” said Lewis. “It’s a huge jump for the CVB thanks to marketing. We had hope that it would make a difference, and it’s really paying off. Every person we meet is another opportunity.”

Lewis also announced the CVB has been working on a mapping project of gravel and road trails across several counties, including Wood, Wirt, Roane, Ritchie and Calhoun.

“This is a statewide initiative and a project that started in Morgantown a while ago,” he said. “Our plan is to show the curated route, let’s say in Cairo, it’ll show you where to eat and what there is to do around there as well. The (North Bend) Rail Trail is our main trail, of course.”

Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis discusses an increase in tourism in the Mid-Ohio Valley area as well as new trail mapping across several counties at Thursday’s Wood County Commission meeting. (Photo by Gretchen Dowler)

Lewis also said that the project will connect to the statewide network already established, and it will be considered one of the longest continuous trails in the country. He also said they had planned on completing the mission of the Parkersburg to Pittsburgh trail, saying that Parkersburg is “mile 0” for that trail.

Commissioner Jimmy Colombo mentioned the CVB has been working on this project for a long time, and Commissioner Jim Hamric said it would be great to go all-in on the project for it to be completed.

“It would be great to see a mirror of what this program and project would look like,” said Colombo. “As well as what the access and response would be from the people regarding this, just to make us feel good about the project.”

Director of Emergency Management Sam Scalise and Wood County 911 Director Dale McEwuen gave updates regarding the Peoples Cartage fire, which briefly reignited early Wednesday morning but was quickly extinguished.

“At 5:31 a.m., a hotspot reignited at Peoples Cartage and Mineral Wells Volunteer Fire Department responded,” said McEwuen. “At 6:10 a.m., the fire was out. By 7:01 a.m., the emergency management vehicles were packing up and done responding.”

Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council Project Coordinator Andy Hartleben, left, looks on as Wood County Commissioners sign off on paper work regarding the Hill Avenue drawdown project and the Happy Valley project. (Photo by Gretchen Dowler)

Commissioner Blair Couch said it will put everyone at ease once the debris from the fire is properly disposed of and tested.

“We’ve learned a lot since the IEI fire in 2017, and we put that knowledge towards this fire,” said Couch. “We used the river pumps on the fire, and we were on top of it with the CTEH (Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health) reports.”

Colombo said with the availability of the data sheets and reports gathered from the fire, people can gain honest and transparent details instead of relying on fear-fueled reports.

The commissioners said the West Virginia Department of Agriculture had updated information regarding impacts to local livestock and it could be found on the department’s website, agriculture.wv.gov. They also said the EPA and DEP would have summary tables and data sheets available soon.

Separately Wednesday evening, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection said the fire scene was being turned over to “the responsible party, which is identifying an environmental contractor to handle cleanup and remediation under WVDEP oversight. Initial work will include characterizing debris to determine appropriate disposal methods and conducting a broader assessment of the site and surrounding areas.”

Wood County Commissioners, from left, Jim Hamric, Jimmy Colombo andBlair Couch, and County Administrator Marty Seufer, listen to updates from around the county at their regular meeting Thursday. (Photo by Gretchen Dowler)

DEP said it assessed the site to determine whether additional controls were necessary to minimize runoff during cleanup and continued sampling efforts in the Little Kanawha River.

“Preliminary laboratory results remain well below applicable West Virginia water quality standards and additional analysis is ongoing,” the DEP said in a news release.

Air monitoring throughout the affected area is consistently showing no exceedances of health-based standards, according to the DEP.

During the meeting, commissioners also discussed writing thank-you notes and letters of commendation to those who helped during the Peoples Cartage fire.

“It’s been very meaningful to so many of us that the community stepped up the way it did during the fire,” said Scalise. “It wasn’t just food and beverages, but they also donated clothing for people who couldn’t leave the site. And Camden Clark also kept maintaining everyone’s health at the site. We’re very appreciative of the community. It’s been a good team effort.”

The next Wood County Commission meeting is 9:30 a.m. Monday at 1 Court Square, Suite 203, Parkersburg.

Gretchen Dowler can be reached at gdowler@newsandsentinel.com