by Kate Shunney
The board of the Warm Springs Public Service District will work with regional development officials to apply for a $1 million grant that could pay for an extension of public sewer service north to the Senior Center and U.S. Silica buildings.
Sewer board members voted last Wednesday to authorize chairman Mike Jenkins to sign a grant application seeking the funds. Jenkins said the funding opportunity was shared with the PSD by Commissioner Sean Forney.
Commissioner Forney told The Morgan Messenger that more details will be forthcoming in the next several weeks, but that the source of the possible funding is the West Virginia Water Development Authority from their Economic Enhancement Grant Fund.
According to that agency’s online documents, that fund was created in 2022 with $427 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds for infrastructure projects.
Any money remaining in the Economic Enhancement fund must be spent by December 31, 2026.
At the February 11 meeting of the sewer board, Project Engineer for Thrasher Chase Riley and Assistant Director Jennifer Wishmyer of the Eastern Panhandle Regional Planning and Development Council (Region 9) explained that the funds are available under a March 1 application deadline, so the Public Service District and county could only apply with a project that is “shovel-ready” – meaning preliminary engineering or cost studies on the project have already been done.
That’s the case with the northern sewer extension plan, said sewer officials. 
In response to questions from The Messenger at that meeting, Riley said the extension would start at the Fairview Pump Station #2 just north of the county wastewater treatment plant and run parallel to U.S. 522 to the Senior Center building and then to several buildings on the U.S. Silica property. That area is expected to be a future area of development as the northern end of the U.S. 522 Bypass and Northern Connector road to War Memorial Hospital are completed in 2027 or 2028.
“That project looks like it will be successful, It’s pretty straightforward,” said Riley.
In other business, sewer officials approved edits to a water termination agreement with the Town of Bath, under which public water can be shut off to sewer customers for non-payment of their sewer bills.
Chairman Jenkins said the agreement will require the town to perform the water shutoffs within three days of notification from the sewer utility.
Sewer board members, after some discussion, also voted to open a separate bank account for revenue the district receives for water-related activities.
“We don’t currently provide water. If we ever want to go into water, we can’t spend sewer money on water,” said Jenkins.
The PSD does provide operational oversight of three small water plants in the county. Revenue from those activities will go into the water account, board members said.
Scott Crunkleton, consulting sewer manager, estimated that moving water-related funds to a new account could mean the loss of $30,000 to $40,000 per year out of the general sewer budget.
There was some discussion about how labor and equipment cost might be separated out for accounting purposes between separate accounts.
Jenkins said the board was simply deciding to open a separate account at that time.