Three Preston County projects will receive funding from the federal budget.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., announced that she secured a total of $250,950,000 in Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) measures for a variety of West Virginia projects.
These earmarks, which Capito authored after having consulted and worked with entities and organizations across the state, were included in the Fiscal Year 23 federal funding bill that passed on Dec. 22.
The Kingwood Water Works WISDOM Project will receive $4 million. It focuses on improving the reliability, safety and security of the water supply for the Camp Dawson Army National Guard facility.
Mon Health Preston Memorial Hospital will receive $3 million. That funding will be used to expand and renovate the Physician Center for additional space.
The Newburg dam rehabilitation feasibility study was funded for $55,000. Funding will be used to bring the aging Newburg Dam infrastructure into compliance with state safety regulations.
“We’re trying to get the dam up to compliance with West Virginia Dam Safety regulations so we can get a certificate of approval,” Newburg Mayor Edgar Fortney said. “This is the first funds we’ve received for that in some time.”
Newburg Council learned during a September meeting with Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. of Civil and Environmental Consultants that the state Department of Environmental Protection had discovered the town did not have a permit for the dam.
Dam safety permits cover the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a dam. The permits are required prior to construction of a new dam or the enlargement of an existing dam in order to provide for public health, safety and welfare.
Sullivan said that in order to get the certificate, the town must have a stability analysis done on the embankment to show the banks won’t slide, show that water is not going under the spillway that could cause a failed spillway, do a core analysis and show the dam will be able to handle the amounts of water produced during a storm. An example is a storm dumping 6 inches of rain in 24 hours.
“We want to try to do this as reasonably as we can and get the certification. It’s not so much the size of the dam but what is downstream from it,” Sullivan said, referring to homes, fields or wetlands.
The federal funds can only be used in the manner set forth by the program and agency to which the application was submitted. Funds are awarded based upon the response of the agency, but Capito works with the agencies and receiving entities to try to get to the funds as soon as possible, her office said.