The Malden Public Service District will finally get a new wastewater treatment plant, thanks to a combination of new funds, including a grant and a $14.5 million loan from the U.S Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office.
Bob Brown, one of the PSD's commissioners, said the project will finally bring the plant into compliance with environmental regulations after years of increased scrutiny.
"Neither of the three of the current commissioners were around when it was built, but when we came on board, we inherited a plant here that was obsolete," Brown said. "We had some incredible problems we were dealing with, so much so that we are under a federal consent order to fix this place."
The total renovations will cost about $23.5 million. The USDA, in addition to the loan, is giving the Malden PSD a $4 million grant, and the West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council will loan the PSD $5 million, according to Brown.
Brown said when there is heavy rain, leaks in the pipes cause them to suck up extra groundwater. When the plant has an overflow of sewage and groundwater but nowhere to put it, Brown said the plant either has to dump excess raw sewage into surrounding streams or let it back up into people's homes.
Until the past few years, Brown said the PSD had just tried patching up the problems.
"It was just becoming a money pit - throwing good money at the bad to keep the system functioning," Brown said.
Brown said the 3,300 customers the PSD serves should not expect any interruptions to their service, but they should expect slight increases to their sewer rates in the future. Brown would not clarify how much of an increase customers might expect, saying the PSD has not yet figured out how large of an increase is needed to pay down the loan.
"Thanks in large part to the grants we were able to secure and the really low-interest rates on the loans, it is not going to cause any dramatic increases," Brown said.
Brown said the PSD didn't have any choice but to redo the system. If it didn't stop the leaking sewage, which was identified in the earlier consent order, the PSD risked paying thousands of dollars in fines each day.
Then, in addition to paying the fines, the PSD would still have the fix the system anyway, Brown said.
Dan Farrell, of Thrasher Engineering, said this funding puts the PSD into phase two of a two-part plan to redo the entire system. The first phase, which has already been completed, fixed problems with the plant's collection of wastewater.
The second phase will deal with the actual treatment plant. Among other things, the PSD will repurpose some of its concrete tanks already on the site to better remove waste from the water. A drive-thru window will also be installed so customers can pay their bills more easily.
The facility's problems stretch all the way back to 1975 when the PSD first hired a California-based engineering firm to develop the project, Brown said. The facility was completed in 1980, and just five years later, the PSD filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging a host of problems with the construction, among them a complaint the company designed a treatment plant that didn't work properly and couldn't meet pollution standards, according to a Charleston Gazette report from the time.
"Frankly, it was obsolete when they finished construction," Brown said.
So the problems built over the years. In early 2004, residents complained that two floods had overwhelmed the sewer system and that raw sewage was flowing into their homes.
A portion of the construction on the project will begin in late October, though the PSD will wait until March to start the bulk of construction.
Reach Jake Jarvis at jake.jarvis@wvgazettemail.com, Facebook.com/newsroomjake, 304-348-7939 or follow @NewsroomJake on Twitter.