FAYETTEVILLE, WV (WOAY)- At Thursday’s night public town meeting, the water quality board presented plans to everyone to prevent flooding in Fayetteville.
“We’re talking about the house branch drainage project. It’s a three-phase project focusing on the area of town known as Frogtown. That includes Laurel Street, Grace Street, and Windsor Street,” said Gabe Pena, town councilman and chairman of the Water Quality Board. “These areas that are prone to flooding when we have a big rain event in the town of Fayetteville. We have been looking at this drainage project for quite some time, well before I’ve been on town council, and it’s a big priority for the town of Fayetteville.”
The meeting was to hear feedback, address concerns, and answer questions from locals on this.
“We wanted to have a meeting that we’re bringing the citizens in, especially the property owners that are in those areas, that they have a voice in this whole process,” said Sharon Cruikshank, Mayor of Fayetteville. “I think the citizens asked a lot of good questions. They put a lot of thought into them. And I feel that between the citizens as well as the team we have, we use E.L. Robinson for the engineering firm and I think we can get the address, the issues addressed.”
The public heard from the project manager on this endeavor and he answered any questions he could. With a project such as this, there was planning that had to be done to get these initial plans ready for the meeting.
“The town identified areas to us that are more prone to flooding,” said Kenneth Kinder, Project Manager with E.L. Robinson Engineering. “So we were able to use that information and generate some mapping and really nail down, take the plans far enough along so that when we do have a public meeting that we can effectively communicate to the residents, you know, a good detailed plan and show that we have put forth some effort already.”
This has been a long process for the town council to even get this project off the ground, especially on how to obtain funding.
“When I started on council, we were talking about implementing a stormwater fee on all our businesses and property, both residential and business property owners,” explained Pena. “And instead of doing that, we decided to go with the 1% sales tax. 50% of that sales tax goes towards stormwater management and so that created a mechanism where we can actually start talking about real solutions and engaging an engineer. So now we are working with E.L. Robinson to come up with these plans.”
