Morgantown Dominion Post
29 January 2009
By Tracy Eddy
The city of Morgantown began putting together its new budget at Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
City Council members discussed their individual goals and projects they’d like to see funded in the 2009-’10 fiscal year.
Council members also discussed another project important to them and the residents of Morgantown and Monongalia County: The possibility of protecting the local water supply from pollution caused by gas-well drilling operations.
Committee of the Whole meetings are a chance for City Council members to receive information and ask questions in an informal setting. No official action is taken at these meetings.
City Manager Dan Boroff said the City Council members came up with a list of about 35 items they wanted to fund in the coming fiscal year, including the city employees’ cost of living increase and fringe benefits, continued improvements to the streetlights and the city’s streetscape project.
General ideas were brought up as well, Boroff said, such as putting funding toward traffic calming or public safety.
He said he is not sure yet which or how many of the council members’ priorities would be funded. Funding depends on the revenue the city has to put toward those priorities and the needs of the city’s department heads.
Boroff said he would be meeting with the city’s department heads to go over what they would need to fund operations within their individual departments soon.
In mid-February, Boroff said, he will make a recommendation to the City Council regarding the adoption of the city’s 2009-’10 budget.
The budget is presented to City Council as an ordinance during the City Council meetings in March, he said. It must go through first and second readings, as well as a public hearing.
After City Council approves the budget, Boroff said, it will be sent to the State Auditor’s Office for final approval.
City Council moved to put on its next meeting agenda a resolution asking local delegates to work with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to protect the area’s water supply.
City Council will vote on whether or not to adopt the resolution at its Tuesday meeting.
Deputy Mayor Don Spencer wrote the resolution, based on information he gathered from three forums hosted by the Upper Monongahela River Association and the Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce’s Mon Rover Recreation and Commerce Committee, as well as newspaper articles and documents explaining similar situations in other states.
According to the resolution, the DEP will be asked to control the levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) — organic and inorganic minerals, salts, metals and other matter found in water, measured in milligrams per liter (mg/l) — in the Monongahela River.
The resolution is asking that the TDS levels not be allowed to exceed 500 mg/l in West Virginia.
TDS found in the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania and West Virginia include sulfate from acid mine drainage, and sodium and chloride found in wastewater produced by Marcellus Shale drilling, according to information provided by the Upper Monongahela River Association.
The Marcellus Shale is a rock formation rich in natural gas deposits that runs beneath portions of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee. The natural gas is costly to extract. Drilling typically involves blasting millions of gallons of water underground to release the natural gas locked deep in the rocks.
Spencer said he was pleased with the discussion on the resolution, adding that three people commented in favor of the resolution during the meeting’s public portion.
“Everyone was in agreement that the resolution was an important move,” he said.