Published: May 16, 2008 12:47 pm         

Mayor reports on Westernport projects status

Ten years ago a hard rain made parts of Westernport unsafe and at best hard to get in and out of sometimes as the roads and streets were blocked. Even the middle school was opened for the people during these bad storms, remember?

We also at that time and for some years before had a failing transmission line for our water from Savage River Dam. We set about working to solve both problems. The water line from Savage took us through more than four years of planning, discussions with people who would never invest a dime in this project and the politics of it all.

When we first started the water line, it was at $2 million, the final cost was $6 million. It was ours and we never gave up on building this line, We now have a safe, secure line that is dependable and will be for many years to come. It is totally owned by the people of Westernport, it will pay dividends soon.

The same goes for our flooding projects here in our town. Think back if you will as how Lincoln Drive was destroyed time and again by raging waters, The homes on Green and McKinley Streets that were damaged time and again, not only there but also all over town. You sometimes could not get in or out of town because of raging waters.

We set about getting funds to lay storm sewer piping with the help of the Army Corps of Engineers. They spent much time here developing ways to carry this water away from the homes in our town. We have received over $8 million in grants for this work.

We are about to start a major project in the next two weeks that will play a major part in, flood control, but not total control in our town. Lines will be built from Ross Street to George's Creek, from Cosgrove's Lane to Lincoln Drive and from the Catholic Cemetery to George's Creek traveling the entire length of Oakview Drive. At the same time the sewer line in George's Creek will be cleaned and repaired so as to accept what it was originally built to carry. This is a part of a $4 million grant from EPA and MDE.

Will this solve our problems with storm water? No, but it surely helps. There is still much work to do on both hills. There are storm wafer projects being planned now on other streets. One thing that you must remember is that if you don't keep planning ahead you will have "dead" construction seasons and Westernport has had too many of them in her past.

What must be remembered is this our sanitary sewers have in the past accepted storm water which caused much of our flooding. I am told that there are about 9 to 11 miles of streets and alley ways in our town. In the majority of these streets are a combined sewer and drinking water line as well as laterals from these lines to your home. Also there will be a gas line running there, as well in most streets with laterals to your home.

The sanitary/storm line (CSO) must now be separated from storm water. This means all new lines except where repairs have been made. At some point in time, all new pipes must be installed. Westernport, like most of Allegany County, is under a consent decree to get this work done.

We are just finishing a small project on Maryland Avenue. This project was 420 feet in length. It consisted of installing two manholes, 420 feet each of water and sewer lines and laterals to the homes. This project cost $98,500 and could cost more and did not include curb-to-curb blacktopping. It did at the beginning but the cost went too high and was taken out.

Two years ago we hired a contractor to do some blacktopping patching for our town; we still make payments on this debt. As you may recall, we at one time did our own blacktop work. We no longer have a workforce to do this work. We opted to downsize to hold expenses down.

Oakview Drive will be totally blacktopped and blacktopping will take place on the streets mentioned before.

Look at Rock Street, the sewer line was replaced not the water line, count the patches. At the time the town didn't have the funds to replace the water line.

You can plan street repairs as long as you have the capital for these improvements but if you don't then you get the work done through other means.

The people of Westernport cannot afford to have extra monies put on them each month for blacktop with the cost of living going even higher with no end in sight.

Engineers three years ago told us that it would take $17 to $19 million to replace water pipes and add storm sewers to our town streets. What would it cost now with prices spiraling out of sight?

Again look at Poplar Street, Johnson Street and/or Kelly Avenue, Spruce Street or any street and then compare them to the project on Maryland Avenue.

How much money will you be asked to pay and what street will be first, yours?

The 300 blocks of Westernport Hill from Poplar to Front Street was reworked over 10 years ago. This is still being paid for. Blacktop won't stay nice because of leaking pipes, so it must all be done at the same time.

Ride through the 300 block of Spruce Street, this was done wrong! But the debt is still there! We are still paying a water treatment plant debt that was made many years ago and yet this work will most likely be torn out to modernize and bring us into state compliance.

Today we received 20 tons of blacktop to start our patching in the town. The cost was $74.50 per ton the total was $1,490. The last time we ordered blacktop the price per ton was $67.50 seven months ago.

We have a three part program with the funding agencies.

1. Transmission line completed.

2. Filter house rebuild in progress.

3. New service lines in the streets, comes with street repairs.

This three-part program should have been completed, but high pricing has slowed it down.

At this time I ask for your patience on the bad street issue. We can keep them passable, but major work will have to come through other means, such as grants for sewer/water lines.

The $4 million grant we just received April 1 for the flood/sewer work cost the town $1,000 for land purchase. This we can afford!

One last note: We have rebid the Filter House project, twice and still we cannot get the cost of this project down. Prices are really getting out of control, in every part of our lives, as you well know.

Tom Smith, mayor
Westernport