The Town of Newburg was awarded a total of $2,875,000 for the Fellowsville, York Run, and State Route 26 Water Extension Project. USDA Rural Development Community Facilities is providing a $400,000 loan, $941,000 grant, and a $185,000 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) grant to the project. Also, a Small Cities Block grant for $1,000,000 and a West Virginia Infrastructure Council grant for $349,000 are assisting in the total project cost.
The Town serves approximately 250 households and small businesses with public water service. These households had water service through a well as the only source of water supply until 2009. Town residents were worried that the supply would be unusable in the near future because of an increase of iron and manganese that has caused the well’s water quality to gradually deteriorate. All of which would leave residents without a public source of water. Currently, residents are relying on private water supplies of extremely poor quality, and they are having to haul water from outside.
On July 19th, the loans and grants were officially closed. Construction started on August 9th to extend public water service to approximately 150 additional customers in Fellowsville, York Run, and State Route 26 of Preston County, West Virginia. This extension included service to Fellowsville School and the Mountaineer Family Care medical facility.
On August 26th, USDA West Virginia Rural Development State Director Bobby Lewis presented the Town with a certificate of congratulations to celebrate the construction groundbreaking. Morgan Coast, engineer, opened the ceremony with an overview of the project. The State Director then presented the Town with the certificate. Afterward, Lynn Phillips, representative for Governor Joe Manchin; Larry Lemon, representative for Senator Jay Rockefeller; Anna Rittenhouse, representative for Congressman Alan Mollohan; and Stan Shaver, member, House of Delegates (Preston County) all spoke to commend and congratulate the Town of Newburg on the start of construction.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced funding for additional water projects funded through the Recovery Act today. One of them is for the Norton-Harding-Jimtown PSD in West Virginia. To find out more, click here.
