WESTOVER, W.Va. — The City of Westover now has an official starting date for the long-awaited Holland Avenue sewer line replacement project.
Thrasher Group Senior Project Manager Doug Smith reported to the Westover City Council during their regular meeting Monday that the approximately $2.96 million project will officially begin on March 24. This will start a 90-day timeframe for the work that will include the replacement of both gravity sewer line and storm sewer line along Holland Avenue, as well as an overhaul of the road affected by the construction as well as work towards other city projects.
“The contractor for the city will start on March the 24th and then run for about three to four months,” said Smith. “That’ll be replacing the sanitary and the storm line along Holland Avenue,” he said.
The work on Holland Avenue will consist of replacing approximately 2,800 feet of gravity sewer line and 3,000 feet of storm sewer line beneath the road’s surface. This will be followed by the replacement of the Dunkard Avenue lift station that will support the addition of 500 feet of new sanitary sewer line and 500 feet of new force main line that will be included as part of a connection to the Morgantown Utility Board (MUB) water treatment system. Blue Gold Development, LLC, is still projected to be completing work on the Holland Avenue project by the time the work on Dunkard Avenue is started by Green River Group, LLC, in June.
“(Following Holland Avenue work will be) replacing the sanitary and sewer station on Dunkard Avenue, it’ll collect the sewer from Westover and pump it across the river into the Morgantown system,” said Smith.
Smith also reported that there have been some issues regarding the acquisition of materials for the closing portions of the project. In the most recent quote, the materials found to support the rehabilitation of the Holland Avenue retaining wall as well as some additional aesthetic improvements around the Westover Bridge were determined to be over $250,000, a quote that led to Westover City Council agreeing to seek another source. The hope for project managers is to have the materials acquired for that portion of the project within the next month or less.
“We were looking at replacing the handrails along the concrete from West Park Avenue down towards the bridge, replacing that and putting some additional lighting in there, those are exorbitantly high,” said Smith. “So we’re still trying to find out where to find the materials somewhere (else),” he said.
The beautification portion of the project will run from the area of River Road to the top of the hill.
The plan for the Thrasher Group, other managers on the project, and officials with the City of Westover is to have the Holland Avenue and Dunkard Avenue work completed by the end of September. In the time that the majority of the materials were acquired for both projects, project managers have decided that the city will complete the resurfacing of Holland Avenue after the lines are installed, regardless of future plans for the West Virginia Department of Highways to conduct a full-depth repair of the disturbed area once the project is complete. With DOH scheduling potentially affecting the timeframe of the project, the City of Westover appears ready to get to work on the long-awaited infrastructure improvements by the end of March.
“It’s not fitting into the DOH’s plan, so we will be doing all of the pipeline replacement as well as doing all of the pavement replacement (within the 90-day timeframe),” said Smith.