MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Monongalia County Commission says it is pleased with recent infrastructure accomplishments and spending strategy for money received through the American Rescue Plan Act.
Commission President Sean Sikora and commissioners Tom Bloom and Jeff Arnett reviewed projects and spending highlights for the year on Friday’s “Talk of the Town” show on WAJR Radio.
Sikora said transportation projects remain a priority.
“You have the Mileground project that was done a little while ago, the Beechurst project that was finished recently, and you start seeing movement on the Collins Ferry roundabout,” Sikora said. “It just seems like things are starting to get done.”
Sikora credits Bloom, state Senator Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, and Del. Joe Statler, R-Monongalia, in leading the effort.
Other projects include new access to the Morgantown Industrial Park via a new bridge over the Monongahela River which is set to start next year while progress continues on approval for the proposed I-79 Harmony Grove exit as well.
Now, much of their focus will shift to moving the Exit 155 Gateway project into the action phase. The intersection plagued with traffic backups onto the interstate has been in the discussion phase for nearly a decade but now has state and federal funding totaling $110 million. The intersection will serve events at Mylan Park and serve as the gateway into Star City, West Virginia University, and the Morgantown area. A provision in the federal grant requires substantial completion by the fall of 2028 and also adds a sense of urgency to get the project underway.
“We’re going to focus on that going through the year; we’re waiting for that agreement to be signed by the DOH,” Sikora said. “We assigned our grant to the DOH so we could have better collaboration with them moving forward.”
ARPA funds
Monongalia County received a little more than $20 million in ARPA funds due to the pandemic. Sikora said their spending priorities were water, broadband, and sewer—except for $30,000 awarded to the Mon Rivers Trail Conservancy to upgrade a five-mile section of trail between Opekiska Road and Pricketts Bridge.
“There were a lot of questions as to what those dollars could be used for, so we waited until we had that direction,” Sikora said. “The directions changed, but we always stuck to water, broadband, and sewer.”
Some of the projects under construction are the Chaplin Hill Water and Sewer Upgrade, Popenoe Run Interceptor Improvements, upgrades at several public service districts, and the ongoing broadband expansion throughout the county.
“We essentially allocated about $8 million to broadband projects, $8 million to water and sewer projects, and about $3 million to some electrical upgrades,” Sikora said. “So, we’ve taken that $20 million and leveraged it into about $54 million in projects.”
The quick spend of the funds in the county shows the continued need for infrastructure investment to continue economic development. The electrical upgrades to the Morgantown Industrial Park were vital for the addition of the 330,000-square-foot Mountaintop Beverage facility and up to 300 new jobs.
“Even our revenue replacement dollars that we could spend on anything, we had about $3.4 million that we could spend on anything,” Sikora said. “We spent $3.1 million on an electrical project for Mountaintop Beverage.”