MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Those who want to address Morgantown Utility Board’s raw water pipeline project in White Park have several opportunities to do so.
After weeks of public outcry over varying issues surrounding the project, MUB is hosting three public hearings on eight alternatives to the orginal project. Those options, vary from minor adjustments to the original pipeline projection to just avoiding White Park all together. The hope, is that through public input, eight options can be cut down to two.
“Just the natural progression would lead us to fewer and fewer alternatives,” said Morgantown Utility Board General Manager Tim Ball. “Or said the opposite way, that we’ll be able to identify and narrow down the list of alternatives as these meetings progress,” he said.
The original project, is going through one of several adjustments since a path was planned in White Park for construction on the pipeline. Since then, several concerned citizens have spoken out against the project voicing concerns that range from cutting down so-called “witness trees” to long term land damage. Ball encourages anyone with similar concerns to come to the meetings.
“All of these meetings that I am talking about right now are public meetings, public participation, Q and A, we’ll be there as long as the public wants to be there,” he said.
MUB has presented several alternatives to address some of those concerns, which in some cases are as costly as $5 million. In order to avoid what would be the second significant rate hike for MUB users, Ball says they want to try a user friendly matrix, which would help make a fair balance between public input and cost.
“We think that once that matrix is fully populated with all the relavent and comparative data, we think that an obvious alternate or an obvious one or two candidates are going to speak for themselves and kind of jump off the page,” he said.
The first public meeting was held on Friday the BOPARC office. The second, is expected to be held at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, May 29 at City Hall. The third meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. Monday June, 3rd at the MUB facilities on Green Bag Road. All of these public meetings, will be circled by meetings with Morgantown City Council as well, so every sense of public input can have a say.
“In addition to that, we’re going to have probably two appearances scheduled right now with city council,” said Ball. “I’m certain that we’re going to be at City Council on May 28th, that’s next Tuesday at 7 p.m. to make a presentation to City Council,” he said.
MUB officials are also expected to meet with council on June 4th.