By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Robert Metzger of the Canaan Valley Public Service District presented an update on the status of the PSD and its latest developments to the Tucker County Commission December 11th. The update came as part of the Commission’s regular meeting.
Metzger began his presentation by outlining the history of the PSD. According the Metzger, the PSD was established by the Tucker County Commission in 2006 to consolodate the sewage treatment of the cluster of communities in Canaan Valley. “So, what we tried to do was set up, we got grants, we got two state of the art sewage treatment plants put in,” Metzger said. “We went online in 2011. We had five customers. And it was great. It was great to be a board member.”
Metzger said the five customers were the communities themselves, instead of the individual homeowners. “Our five customers were Beaver Ridge, North Pointe, Black Bear Resort, North Lake Home Owners Association and Timberline,” Metzger said. “What we did was we’d send a bill for sewage treatment to each one of those organizations and then they would pay.”
Metzger said a change in payments began in 2018 with the previous owners of Timberline. “Everything went along really fine until about 2018 and I think you can remember what started happening in about 2018 and it all started with Timberline,” Metzger said. “Timberline started getting late in paying their bills…Timberline started getting late. Then they stopped paying.”
According to Metzger, the individual collection systems were not owned by the PSD and any issues that would need to be addressed would be covered by the customers. “Now see, the Public Service District, we didn’t own their collection systems,” Metzger said. “All we did was process the sewage. So if there was a leak somewhere, the Home Owners Association or Timberline had to fix it.”
Timberline ran up a large amount of debt and were taken to court by the PSD on two separate occasions, Metzger said. “And we got into probably $500,000 in debt,” Metzger said. “And we took them to Court on two occasions and they were told to bring their account current, which they never really did.”
Then came the death spiral of the non payment of electric, Metzger said. “And then of course in 2018, they stopped paying their electric bill and it was a death spiral for Timberline,” Metzger said. “If you remember the storm that happened as far as the boil water notice, all the real estate agencies were up in arms. Nobody wanted to come up here.”
The electric could not be shut off because of the water system, Metzger said. “Everybody was losing money because the electric company could not shut off their water system because Timberline provided water and a sewage collection system for sewage lines and they would not shut off the water, it was against the law because Timberline has like 450 customers they provide water to,” Metzger said.
It was in 2019 that the court ordered that the PSD take over the water service of Timberline, Metzger said. “So finally in March of 2019, through the Circuit Court and the Public Service Commission, they took operational control of Timberline utilities away and chartered us or charged us to take over,” Metzger said. “We don’t own it, which is unfortunate.”
Timberline still owns the water system, but do not have the legal right to operate it, Metzger said. “Of course they went bankrupt,” Metzger said. “They sold the ski area. Technically they still own the water system, but we run it, they have no authority to do anything. They get no money. We have been saddled with this thing.”
Metzger said they went from five customers to 500 overnight. “We went from five customers to 500 customers overnight,” Metzger said.
Timberline is the only water utility that the PSD has, Metzger said. “The only water that we do is for what happened with Timberline Four Seasons Utilities,” Metzger said. “We took over that water system.”
Metzger said that the PSD had no idea how many customers they had due to the state of the files confiscated by the Sheriff’s Office. “Now all of a sudden we had to scramble and we didn’t even know how many customers and who the customers were,” Metzger said. “We had to do a deep dive into files. The files that we got, well, you don’t want me to describe the files that we got that the Sheriff confiscated from Timberline. It was a mess and it didn’t show us anything.”
Metzger said there were some customers that had not paid in two years when they finally straightened out the files. “There had been customers on the system that hadn’t paid for two years because they bought a house and nobody every changed over the utilities,” Metzger said. “We had to chase all of those down.”
It was six months before the PSD knew how many customers they had, Metzger said. “The only saving grace was that they were using a web based billing system that was woefully out of date,” Metzger said. “It took us six months to get a handle on just who our customers were because all they were doing was taking money out of the system and putting it into the ski area.”
Metzger said the Administrative Law Judge even commented on the situation by the previous owners of Timberline. “Even the Administrative Law Judge in one of his final things said when he petitioned the Circuit Court, he said, ‘We have to get their hands out of the cookie jar.’ Now when a judge says that, that’s pretty serious,” Metzger said.
Metzger said he has spent a lot of sleepless nights. “Let’s just say its been quite a journey. We’ve spent many sleepless nights wondering what was going to happen,” Metzger said.
Water treatment is critical infrastructure, Metzger said. “When you’re talking about water treatment systems, this is critical infrastructure,” Metzger said. “Even thought technically its a private system, it provides water for an organization or a place that brings a lot of money into this county.”
Metzger said the PSD was in need of a used backhoe when they approached the Commission for assistance. “That’s when we came to you all and said if there is any way, there are some things that we need,” Metzger said. “Like we needed a backhoe because now we have to fix leaks, water leaks because the system up there is, you’ll see what it looks like. Its terribly antiquated. We needed a used backhoe so we could do some of our own repairs without having to contract out and we needed another vehicle.”
Besides a backhoe, the PSD was in need of vehicles as well, Metzger said. “When we took over, Timberline utilities had no vehicle,” Metzger said. “The two operators, three operators that were there were driving their own personal vehicles to go around and try to read meters and you could see them they were carrying shovels in the back of their pickup trucks. It was pretty sad.”
Metzger said the PSD purchased two ram pickups and a used backhoe with Commission money, as well as much needed maintenance to the facility, Metzger said. “We wanted to show you all what you ended up doing for us,” Metzger said.
Some of the maintenance completed on the Water Plant included: painting, repairing garage doors so that they would open, cleaning of rust and painting of tanks, replacing valves and changing of medium, according to Metzger. “If you are going to run a system, you have to maintain a system,” Metzger said. “No maintenance had been done since this system had been put into effect. Absolutely none. No routine maintenance done.”
“Our production rate initially was somewhere between 60 and 75 gallons a minute, production rate,” Metzger said. “Which is woefully inadequate. We had to have people, operators pumping 19 hours a day during ski season just to try to keep up because of all the visitors in there using everything.”
Following the maintence, Metzger said it went up to 175 gallons a minute which allowed the PSD to keep up with demand and get ahead.
Metzger said the PSD does not provide water for snow making at Timberline. “We don’t provide any water for snow making,” Metzger said. “Snow making water comes out of either Spruce Island Lake, the pond that’s right there next to Timberline Road, it’s Winterset Pond and they also have a snow making pond by the bunkhouses and they have pump systems.”
Metzger said that the PSD has a Senate Earmark slated to construct a new water plant. “We do have an Earmark, a Senate Earmark, for an $8 million water plant,” Metzger said. “That’s in engineering right now. “I don’t see this happening for at least another two years.”
The plant is slated to be located next to the sewage treatment facility on PSD property, Metzger said. “What we are going to do with that is we are going to locate that water plant on PSD property which is next to the sewage treatment plant,” Metzger said. “And I promise we won’t mix waters, ok. We got an unlimited water supply down there at the water treatment plant. We have to have fresh water to take care of cleaning and all that. They tried to do a draw down on that well and they could not do it.”
The plans for the existing plant will be to be utilized as a backup, Metzger said. “What my plans are, if we can get this system online, then we will shut this system down, but we will use it as a backup,” Metzger said.
Metzger thanked the Commission for the allocation of the ARP funding for the project. “It was a good project and we certainly thank the Commission for earmarking some of that ARP funds because it did go to what I would say is critical infrastructure and it really helped that out,” Metzger said. “Also in turn, that helps the County out as well because no one wants to bring bottled water for their vacation.”
Following the slideshow, Commission President Mike Rosenau commented on the before and after photos of the water treatment plant. “That is what I would want my water supply to look like,” Rosenau said. “For me to drink, my grandkids to drink. I would want to know the medium was changed, I would want to know the pumps don’t have rust on them or in the system or bacteria. Looks nice, Bob. Thank you, all.”
