FAYETTEVILLE, WV – Gov. Jim Justice announced today that West Virginia has secured $1.5 million in federal grant funding that will be used for multiple upgrades to the water systems in the Fayette County communities of Powellton and Deep Water.
“It’s a great day for Fayette County and another great day for West Virginia,” Gov. Justice said. “We were able to identify several communities across the state that were in greatest need of help with upgrading water lines and other projects, so I’m excited to be able to give away another big amount of federal money to help make everyday life better for our people right here at home.”
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/sewer line and broadband improvement projects throughout West Virginia this year by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In Powellton, a portion of the $1.5 million grant will be used to replace the existing Powellton water storage tank with a new, 150,000-gallon tank. The funding will also be used to upgrade about 10,000 feet of existing water lines.
The remainder of the grant will be used in the community of Deep Water to upgrade about 9,000 feet of existing water lines, while also providing additional fire protection measures to the water system to help improve safety and reliability.
In total, these Fayette County water line infrastructure improvement projects will benefit more than 2,400 people in the Powellton and Deep Water areas.
“This is truly significant because we are going to make these water systems more efficient,” Gov. Justice said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to keep water costs down and provide reliable, clean water in these communities for a long, long time.
“We wish we had 13 billion dollars and we would fix everything we had, coming and going, all at one time,” Gov. Justice continued. “But this is a good start and we just want to keep on doing more and more for all of our people here in West Virginia.”
A grand total of $10.7 million of the overall CDBG funds awarded in West Virginia will go toward similar water and sewer line projects, benefiting thousands of people in 7 different counties across the state.
Gov. Justice will announce more of West Virginia’s 19 total CDBG awardees over the coming weeks.