FOLLANSBEE, W.Va. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito made an announcement that’s looking to send a large chunk of change to Follansbee.
On Monday, Capito announced the city would be receiving nearly $10.2 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to upgrade its water treatment plant and to separate storm and sanitary sewer lines.
While the bulk of the funding is coming from the federal government, the state government also stepped in to help, according to Mayor David Velegol.
“Really, there’s two loans here – one is for $10.2 million and the state’s actually doing a match on that with $2.7 million for a total of $12.9,” Velegol said.
With the state and federal governments pitching in, Velegol said the benefits will trickle down to residents.
“If you went out and got a loan, it’s actually going to save each of our residents $9,000 on the whole,” Velegol said. “So, that’s a big savings for each person.”
While Velegol said that this has been a project 3 1/2 years in the making, this money will allow upgrades to begin quickly.
“We went ahead, we knew it was coming already,” he said. “So, we went out to bids. We had it fully engineered already and that was the big part of this. By having it fully engineered, we were shovel ready. So, that was one thing that really attracted it to the grants. So, anyhow, we bid it out, and we have a bid selection all ready, so we’re probably going to start breaking ground, probably in the next two months.”
After groundbreaking, the upgrades are expected to be done in about 18 months, something Velegol said he couldn’t have happened without a team effort.
“I just want to thank everybody,” he said. “From Governor (Jim) Justice for the grant, for the state match, to Senator Capito and everybody on the team. It really helped pull this together. It’s been a good team effort.”