PINEVILLE, WV – Gov. Jim Justice announced today that West Virginia has secured nearly $1.39 million in federal grant funding that will be used to extend existing water lines in Wyoming County to make water service available to more families in the Upper Huff Creek, Brush Fork and Road Fork areas.
“Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how important it is to have clean, reliable water,” Gov. Justice said. “It’s the very lifeblood of all of us, and when you don’t have easy access to water, that can be pretty doggone tough. That’s why we’re so incredibly excited to be able to extend these water lines in Wyoming County and provide for more people than ever before.”
These funds are just one piece of $13.1 million in federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars that have been dedicated for various water, wastewater and broadband improvement projects throughout West Virginia this year by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In Wyoming County, part of the grant will be used to construct more than 25,000 linear feet of new water lines to the Upper Huff Creek, Brush Fork and Road Fork areas, located north of Oceana.
The project also calls for building a new 54,000-gallon water storage tank in the area, along with a booster station, while also providing additional fire protection measures to the water system to help improve safety and reliability.
In total, this line extension project will make water service available to nearly 200 people in northern Wyoming County and the work will position the new water lines in a way that will allow for additional water line extensions to other unserved areas of the county in the future.
“Today is a good day for Wyoming County, but we’re not done yet by a long shot,” Gov. Justice said. “As we go forward, we’ve got to keep doing more and more in places where there’s a lot of need, to make sure that those people have access to all the resources and opportunities we can get them.”
A grand total of $10.7 million of the overall CDBG funds awarded in West Virginia will go toward similar water line and wastewater line projects, benefiting thousands of people in seven different counties across the state.
Gov. Justice will announce more of West Virginia’s 19 total CDBG awardees over the coming weeks.