HINTON, WV (WOAY) – For decades, the city of Hinton has been using a combined sewer system, which means rainfall as well as household sewage is mixed into the same system and treated together at a water treatment plant.
In recent years, increased rainfall has put a lot of stress on the city’s sewer network and is costing them a lot of resources to treat all of the extra water. The city has been planning for years to fund a project to replace some of their sewer lines to combat the issue.
City manager Chris Meadows says that one issue is storm drains from homes are feeding directly into the sewer system, which is putting a pointless increased workload on the treatment plants, and thus putting more cost on the residents.
“Our plant was treating millions of gallons of water a day. It was just rain water. It’s not like we were flushing all that water down our toilets and our sinks. It was rain water that was connected to storm drains in town that was going straight to the sewer plant,” Meadows said.
Now, the project to replace some sewer lines and change the system is finally underway after years of development, although it does come at a hefty cost. The exact cost of the endeavor has not been fully estimated yet, but Meadows believes the project will cost somewhere between 3.5 and 4 million dollars.
Thankfully, much of this cost has already been accounted for in recent budgets, and the city is expecting grants and loans to help out with funding the project. Meadows claims the city taxpayers will not directly eat any of the cost.
Meadows also claims that even though the project will be lengthy and cost a lot of money, city residents will ultimately be satisfied with the new sewage system.
“It’s underground so people don’t think about it, don’t see it. But if you tell them that you’ll be saving money and it won’t be any increase to their rates, then that’s a pretty positive outlook.”
The current goal of the sewer project is to replace two main lines on Riverside Drive and Greenbrier Drive. And although the project involves digging out current lines, Meadows also stated that it will not affect resident’s current usage of the sewer system.
