Pineville – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., talked with Wyoming County Economic Development Authority members and other officials during a one-hour visit Thursday.
Through “Congressionally Directed Spending” items, previously known as budget earmarks, Capito provided $850,000 for a new access bridge for the Barkers Creek Industrial Park, located between Mullens and Herndon, along with $835,000 to improve and increase the electrical power at the park.
The current bridge access for the industrial park has “severe weight restrictions,” Christy Laxton, county EDA director, explained.
A manufacturing company, which officials did not identify, wants to locate on the park, Laxton said, but a new bridge will have to be built.
Total cost to upgrade the electrical power will be about $1.7 million, Tim Ellison, EDA board member, told Capito.
Laxton said the EDA has also applied for $4.5 million in funding to construct buildings totaling 30,000 square feet.
There are currently no buildings on the park, she said.
Capito’s staff is also providing assistance with the applications.
The industrial park has water and sewer on site and is not located within the floodplain, noted Mike Goode, EDA chairman.
The 10.85-acre parcel stretches between the Norfolk Southern Railroad, Barkers Creek and W.Va. Rt. 10.
The former Lusk Lumber site, the property was purchased in 2011.
Environmental remediation site work was completed with a $200,000 federal Brownfields Assessment Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
For 10 years, budget earmarks have not been used at all, Capito said. Prior to the last decade, however, congressional earmarks were very popular among senators and congressmen.
“How many Robert C. Byrd highways did I drive on to get here?” she joked.
Byrd (1917-2010) served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. senator from West Virginia from 1959 until his death in 2010. He directed billions of federal dollars into West Virginia projects through earmarks which earned him the title “Prince of Pork.”
Those earmarks have been reconstituted as “Congressionally Directed Spending,” Capito said.
“They help me prioritize your projects,” she noted.
Otherwise, officials would have to try and get the attention of funding agencies who are also looking at other applicants.
The funding comes from money that has already been appropriated and is not an “add on,” Capito explained.
The process is now more transparent, she said, and the earmarks can only come from certain “buckets of dollars,” and can only go to non-profits and government agencies.
With the new bi-partisan infrastructure package, she told the group there would be a lot more activity on the highways and the 1,500 bridges “considered a challenge.”
Additionally, there will be a lot of water money, including for drinking water as well as wastewater projects from the legislation, she said.
“And a lot of money is coming for broadband,” she said.
Goode asked her for help with completing the Coalfields Expressway from Welch to the Virginia border, which “will open up southern West Virginia.”
“What’s good for McDowell County is good for Wyoming County,” Goode emphasized.
“You can see the difference in Mullens since the Coalfields opened there in October 2020,” Goode said.
New restaurants and vacation rentals have opened in Mullens since the new four-lane was extended into the small town.
Barry Smith, an EDA board member, owns a vacational rental which is booked about 40 weekends a year. He said visitors have come from Michigan, Ohio, Washington D.C., New York and Maryland with 25 percent of the business from repeat customers.
Construction is already set to begin on three Coalfields Expressway projects this year.
A five-mile segment from Welch to W.Va. 16, another five-mile stretch from Mullens to Twin Falls Resort State Park, as well as a three-mile link from Twin Falls toward Pineville are included in the state’s 2022 road projects, according to state Sen. David “Bugs” Stover, R-Wyoming.
Environmental impact studies on the projects are now underway or have been completed, Stover said.
Right-of-way is currently being obtained for the Welch to W.Va. 16 segment as well as the Mullens to Twin Falls Resort State Park stretch.
Next year, the environmental impact study will be completed on the seven-mile link from W.Va. 16 to Pineville, with construction scheduled to begin in 2026.
There are additional projects that take the new four-lane beyond Welch toward the Virginia border, but the tentative date is now 2034, according to officials.
Designated as U.S. Rt. 121, the Coalfields Expressway will traverse 62 miles across McDowell, Wyoming and Raleigh counties in West Virginia when completed, and another 51 miles in Virginia, from Pound, in Wise County, through Dickenson and Buchanan counties.
Stover also asked for Capito’s assistance in opening land company-owned parcels for construction of the Great Eastern Trail through Wyoming County.
The Great Eastern Trail is a national hiking trail extending 1,800 miles from Alabama to New York.
The companies are concerned about liability, he said.
Other officials noted that both federal and state legislators need to take a serious look at taxing out-of-state land owners as well as hunting clubs who tie up large parcels of land in the county.
Commissioner Sam Muscari also asked for her assistance with the Hanover water project, which has been in the planning stages for nearly two decades.
Water will come from the Gilbert system in Mingo County. Gilbert was awarded more than a million dollars to get the water lines extended from Gilbert to Hanover, one of Capito’s staff said.
The Wyoming County Commission has offered nearly half-a-million dollars in matching funds for the project, but the Mingo County Commission has yet to offer any funding, according to officials.
“We need to have a deeper conversation about this,” Capito said.