By Mallory Panuska
FAIRMONT — After years of aspiring and planning and about four months of construction, the first major project funded by the city’s stormwater utility officially wrapped up last week.
The project replaced and upgraded stormwater pipes in the Watson area and has been on the books for years, city officials said.
Mike DeMary, the city’s stormwater program coordinator, said about six homes on and around Golf Drive were experiencing significant flooding issues in their garages and basements for years and this project, which began in May, addressed those issues.
“We feel it was a good project. It will do what it was designed to do, keep water from entering people’s houses and basements and directing it toward the stream,” DeMary said. “There are probably half a dozen homes in that area that would get water in their basements and garages during heavy rain events.”
City utilities manager Dave Sago said that since the legwork of the project has been finished, there have not been any complaints of flooding from the residents in the area, even after several heavy rainstorms during the summer.
“Even with some of hard rains we’ve had it looks like it’s carrying water away like it’s supposed to,” Sago said. “We hope it’s going to accomplish what we set out for it to do.”
The majority of the project was completed by Cook Brothers Building Company. And last week, the project was finalized by C.W. Stickley with a paving job on Golf Drive.
“The final piece of the puzzle is getting the pavement down to divert water into the road crossings,” Sago explained.
In total, DeMary said the project cost more than $400,000, which up until several years ago would have been beyond the city’s budget. But in 2005, the city started charging a monthly surcharge on the utility bills of customers living within the city’s watershed area to pay for necessary upgrade projects.
The money derived from this fund paid for the project in full, and without that money, officials said this project and other projects slated for the future, would not have been possible.
Last month, the sanitary sewer board received a list of possible projects to be completed after Golf Drive, but DeMary said the board has not yet chosen which one to tackle first.
Currently, DeMary said the stormwater utility is working on routine maintenance and some smaller in-house jobs as officials consider the next project.
Included on the list are projects on Stony Road, Mary Lou Retton Drive at Gilbob Street, Lower Hillcrest Drive at Route 250, Ridgeley Avenue, and Dixie Avenue from Mound to The Drive.
E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.
