SABINE, WV (WOAY) – “It’s pretty hard for the federal government not to come in and do our part.”
The project has been in the works for some time. For years, people in rural Wyoming County have been desperate for a consistent source of clean water. Today, those dreams are one step closer to becoming a reality.
“You’ve got everybody working together,” said USDA State Director Kris Warner. “From Region 1, to the county commissioners, to the public service district. You’ve got the volunteer fire department. You’ve got the whole crew working together. That makes it so much easier for USDA to be able to make a $936,000 Emergency Community Water Assistant Grant.”
The location of the source at the Upper Laurel Fire Department presented some challenges within the development. Eventually, the location for the pump was finalized above a mind shaft.
“We put a pump in here in this well,” said Thrasher Engineering Group Project Manager David Altizer. “You’re looking at an old mine shaft right here. 300 feet deep. The water is standing 240 feet deep in this shaft. And then underneath this whole county is a mine full of water. Now what we believe is, that we’re going to have an endless supply of water as long as people are here.”
There’s no shortage of people that are going to benefit from this project.
“It’s well more than 1200 rural West Virginia customers,” Warner said. “And so those are families.”
The product that those families are getting will be as good as advertised.
“The water quality from here is the best that they’ve had since the PSD started,” Altizer said.
That sounds like something that the entire coverage area can get behind.