SITE SELECTION PSD MEETING

Special PSD meeting to discuss and/or act on site selection and wastewater plant design.

Wednesday, July 16th at 7PM at Snowshoe Mountain Resort. Allegheny Springs Building, Tygart Room

This memo from Elk Headwaters Watershed Association.

Well well well.......I see that the PSD is still stuck on doing the wrong thing and not listening to their own engineer and trying to get site #5 to work when everyone knows that site #7 is the best choice. I guess the land around Snowshoe is just too valuable to be near such a unpopular thing as a sewer plant which is best placed in the laps of county residents. I anxiously await January 2009 and having a County Commission willing to take on the PSD and the large issues presented by this controversy. Meanwhile, I hope the publicity on this gets bigger and bigger because the will of the people must prevail!

letter on line from the wv public service commission

Lynchburg, VA 24501

July 22, 2008
Sandra Squire
Executive Secretary
Public Service Commission
PO Box 812
Charleston, WV 25323

PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
OF WEST VIRGINIA
CHARLESTON

Re: Case No. 05-0103-PWD-CN
Pocahontas County Public Service District
Case No. 07-1 890-WS-PSD-C
Snowshoe Property Owners Council
Snowshoe Water and Sewer, Inc. and
Pocahontas County Public Service District

On Wednesday evening, July 16, I had the opportunity to attend a PSD meeting held at Alleghany Lodge at Snowshoe, WV. Ostensibly, the purpose of the meeting was to give interested parties, particularly Homeowners on Snowshoe Mountain, the opportunity to comment on the proceedings. About 75 people attended, the majority of which appeared to be Snowshoe Homeowners.

To reiterate some of the background conditions, the proposed regional sewage system is to serve the community of some 1850 homes and condominiums at the top of Snowshoe Mountain, and to provide roughly 50 to 100 home and property owners and several businesses in the Slatyfork valley along US 219 (south, some 2000 vertical feet lower and more than 4 miles by road from the Snowshoe community). The overwhelming majority of the project will be funded by the 1850 homeowners at the top of Snowshoe Mountain.

At the meeting, the PSD stated repeatedly that the only reason for the massive size of the project, and the proposed location of the plant in the valley below is to support future development at the base of the mountain, along the valley. The PSD also stated that without the majority of the funding coming from the 1850 mountaintop Snowshoe rate-payers, the project could not be realistically funded.

Previously, a number of interested parties (Homeowners via the Snowshoe Property Owners Council, or SPOC; Elk Headwaters Watershed Association, and others) had requested that serious consideration be given to a decentralized “cluster” system, wherein a plant would be constructed at the Snowshoe vicinity (in proximity to the 1850 primary rate payers) and funded by those primary rate payers, and one or more additional “cluster” plants would be located in the valley, in proximity to the 100 potential rate payers, and also the land to be developed, to be funded by those rate payers. This approach appears to have the following advantages:

1. Overall costs would be lower, since there would be no need for miles of additional sewage lines transporting sewage long distances,
2. Environmental impact would be considerably less, both in risk and in actual effect, since the Snowshoe plant would not be built on a flood plain,
3. Costs would be fairly allocated on the basis of actual use, rather than having the additional capacity for the valley funded by the current rate payers on the mountain,
4. Developers and large landowners in the valley would pay their fair share as they proceeded with their development.

The alternative would be that the valley developers and landowners would receive a “windfall” improvement in property values, at the expense of the mountaintop owners.

The meeting was a disappointment, and demonstrated a callous indifference on the part of the PSD to the needs and desires of the primary rate payers who will be funding the project. The PSD’s engineer, Mr. Ken Moran of Thrasher Engineering, was unprepared to provide any analysis of a comparison of the two approaches, with the PSD concurring that this technical comparison not needed and has little value. The PSD allowed about half the people signed up to speak the opportunity to speak, and then suddenly and without warning terminated the meeting. Presumably the decision was already made when the meeting started: Scott Milliken, who chaired the meeting, did not respond at all when asked specifically if their minds were made up prior to the meeting. It was apparent that the only reason for the meeting was to have it on record that the meeting was convened.

Snowshoe Homeowners are in favor of renovation of their sewage system, and are willing to fund that renovation. We are not in favor of being the majority funding source for a system having a capacity many times that required for our homes on the mountaintop. We should not be required to pay for capacity for future development elsewhere: that should be paid for by the people who will benefit from that additional capacity. We realize that as out-of-state investors we count little inWest Virginia’s politics, but we should have a say: we have committed our money to making West Virginia succeed, and we should not be dismissed summarily simply because our home of record is elsewhere.

Snowshoe Homeowners are concerned about our environment. To have a valid treatment approach that has been proven elsewhere (Canaan Valley) summarily dismissed (despite the fact that the PSD’s engineer conceded that the effluent from a membrane cluster plant has substantially less environmental effect than that proposed) is offensive to us and should be offensive to all West Virginians as well. To implement a massive regional plant in an environmentally delicate location, with a substantial risk of damage and destruction to a significant wildlife and wild-stream attraction seems ill advised, particularly when there are alternatives available.

The PSD appears to have their “marching orders” from elsewhere, presumably from people aligned with the beneficiaries of a regional system. Indeed, at least one of the PSD members has land in the affected area, and by virtue of being a real estate agent has quite a bit to gain should the single regional plant be implemented. This project does not appear to be governed by technical and economic considerations; it appears instead to be governed by political motivation, driven by people who have clear conflicts of interest.

I cannot see the current PSD providing an impartial analysis and assessment to this project. They appear to be very closely aligned with the large property owners with holdings in the valley below. I therefore suggest that it would be much more fair if a second PSD was constituted, one that focused on the mountaintop community – their needs and requirements, and allow the current PSD to focus on the requirements of the valley below.

I note that Snowshoe Mountain Resort Inc., the company that operates the resort facilities at Snowshoe, is totally independent of the Snowshoe homeowners. They have their own agenda and should not be considered as speaking for the homeowners.

Respectfully Submitted:

Robert T. Forrest, PE (West Virginia)
Homeowner at Snowshoe
rtfvlfski@lynchburg.net

http://www.wvgazette.com/Outdoors/JohnMcCoy/200807260420

July 27, 2008
Sewer plans once again threaten Elk
By John McCoy
Staff writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- If you tilt your head toward Pocahontas County and listen closely,
you can hear the Elk River's nationally famous trout fishing being flushed down 1,950
toilets.

The final gurgle at the bottom of the bowl hasn't yet been heard, but a hand is on the
lever and is starting to exert pressure. The hand belongs to Scott Milliken, a
commissioner for the Pocahontas County Public Service District. At a July 16 meeting,
Milliken shocked an audience of Snowshoe Resort landowners when he announced wholesale
changes in the site and design of a proposed sewage plant for 1,950 homes along the
upper Elk watershed.

Milliken told the audience that the plant would be built at Slatyfork, near the junction
of the Elk's two main tributaries, Old Field Fork and Big Spring Fork. Milliken further
revealed that the plant would not contain special filtering and cooling systems designed
to protect trout fishing.

The announcements stunned Dave Breitmeier, a fishing guide who lives near the Elk at
Valley Fork. "It was like [PSD officials] did a complete 180-degree turnabout," he said
earlier this week via telephone.

At a public meeting just a few days earlier, a spokesman for Clarksburg-based Thrasher
Engineering had announced that the plant would be located on Snowshoe Resort property
near Cupp Run, and that the sewage would be run through a batch filtration system, a
mechanical membrane bioreactor system and an effluent cooling system before being
released.

"When [the engineer] told us those things, I frankly was relieved," Breitmeier said.
"With that [Cupp Run] site, there's no danger of flooding and no danger that the sewage
could get into the sinkholes and caves that underlie the Slatyfork area. And with that
degree of treatment, the water being discharged from the plant wouldn't do any harm to
trout fishing."

The most stunning aspect of the recent turnabout is that regulatory agencies can't do
much about it.

The state Department of Environmental Protection, which must issue the necessary
permits, cannot recommend building sites or treatment specifications. They can only
approve or deny an entity's permit applications.

The state Division of Natural Resources is equally powerless. DNR officials have a duty
to protect the Elk's trout fishing, but they can't lift a finger until real harm is done.

"If we were to comment on [the latest PSD announcement], we wouldn't consider the
Slatyfork site to be a favorable one," said DNR director Frank Jezioro. "Between the
engineering, the threat of flooding, the underground voids and the warm discharge, there
are too many unknowns about what might happen to the Elk's trout fishery."

Philosopher Edmund Burke once said, "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good
men to do nothing." As things stand, DEP and DNR officials appear to be working "by the
letter" while waiting for West Virginia's fickle political winds to blow.

Gov. Joe Manchin could influence those winds in a heartbeat.

Something very important is going to be taken from us. Our peace of mind. Our safety. Possibly our health. The reason it is being taken from us is profit. This sewer project is being pushed on us for one reason. And the person who will gain from it, among others is Scott Milican .The PSD member that is pushing for this hurried plant with no plan. He has admitted that he owns two acres of property along Rt 219, and maybe more, that may be developed with the building of a sewer plant. He said property around the golf course would be worth $250,000.00 per lot if a sewer plant was built. Does this sound like a conflict of interest? He is only interested in one thing.$$$. Not the safety of the valley. Not for our future.
He wants to put this plant and a pipeline on and over unstable land. He has been warned of the dangers of karst land and still wants to put the people of Slaty Fork in danger. He better think long and hard about what he is trying to do. This decision that he , not his fellow PSD members, is going to make will be with him for the rest of his life. If the other members of the PSD had guts to stand up and say what they think this would not have gone on this long. Milican speaks for them and they just sit and listen. I feel sorry for someone who does not stand up for what is right and speak out when something is wrong!
I have worked hard to get what I have. I have spent a lot of my hard earned money to have a home in Slaty Fork, West Virginia. If I found someone taking something from me..God rest his soul.
Don't let greed take from your peace of mind and your health and safety. Stand up for what is right and tell The PSD and Milican that this is WRONG! Attend the PSD meeting.