Ron Michael of the Sun Valley Public Service District approached the Harrison County Commission to garner support for the Sun Valley sewage project, Thursday.

The project has been in the works for the past ten years, he said.

The PSD has been working with federal, state and local government agencies for a number of years to fund the expansion of the existing sewer system to 422 new customers in Reynoldsville, Sun Valley and Wolf Summit.

It will also affect nearly 1300 students and faculty at Liberty High School and Mountaineer Middle School.

The total financing package is more than $8 million and the Harrison County Board of Education has contributed $400,000.

The Sun Valley PSD is applying for $3.2 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which is 100% debt forgiveness.

Officials say in order to receive this funding, they must put it out to bid as soon as possible.

The engineering is complete and funding is in place, they said.

The only missing piece is obtaining the rights-of-way and easement agreements which have been mailed to the property owners.

The easements and rights-of-way must be obtained and turned into the Sun Valley PSD as soon as possible to be eligible for the stimulus money and to keep the costs of the project as low as possible.

The western end of Harrison County is severely under-developed and the advent of this sewage system could help revitalize that area, Michael said.

There would be a tap fee to be included in the project but Sun Valley officials say they will work with individual property owners to ease the payments, if necessary.

For more information, you can call 304-623-9609.