Wellsburg Officials Outline Plans for Water Quality Improvement

Wellsburg city officials are outlining what has already been done and what’s the future may hold for the for its water customers.
City Manager Steve Maguschak and Mayor Dan Dudley have sat down with representatives from the BHJ Planning Commission and the Business Development Corporation, Sen. Shelly Moore-Capito’s Office, Delegate Jimmy Willis and State Sen. Ryan Weld.
“We laid out what we had accomplished so far in relation to the last couple projects, which have taken place over the last 7 to 10 years and what we need to accomplish yet,” Maguschak said.
They say the engineering department came back with an estimated completion cost of more than $25 million.
“Basically, they stated to us that because of the size of Wellsburg and where our fiscal situation is, we probably would get more than $9 or $10 million,” Maguschak said when asked if help if available even though the city can’t afford the $25 million pricetag.
That’s because they don’t charge as much per 1,000 gallons as other cities. And those cities are the ones qualifying for the larger grants.
Would the City of Wellsburg raise it’s rates more?
“Well, what we would do, and like I said, we have tried to maintain these lower rates for our residents for many years, if we were to get a project in place, we could hold that rate back until we read substantial completion of the project,” Maguschak said.
Both officials say they are dealing with issues decades beyond their repair, long before they took office.
“You know you have to do repairs on things every year. And some of these things maybe had been done in the past. It wouldn’t all jump on us all at one time,” Dudley said.
Dudley also mentioned recent rake hikes, which have sparked questions from residents. He confirms the rates were announced in the last three council meetings before they were put in effect.
“We need more from our legislature to give more of a positive impact. I think we deserve better,” he said.
“The main thing right now is that we are going to have a plan for our future representatives,” Maguschak said. “Because he and I won’t be here the whole length of the time for these projects, but we will have a plan for them to follow. “
Officials are taking active steps to create a four-phase plan to fix the city’s lines.