Finalization of sewage treatment grant will complete infrastructure expansion at airport

Bruce Justice (Mingo Messenger) May 11, 2022

The finalization of an Economic Development Assistance Grant application will finish all the infrastructure expansion projects at the Southern West Virginia Regional Airport. During the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority’s April 27 meeting, Executive Director Leasha Johnson reported that this funding originally had represented the completion of a both a sewage treatment plant and paving of the last half of the airport access road through a WV Economic Development grant application. Because the airport was recently awarded a little more than $3 million via the Congressional Direct Spending Appropriation to complete the paving project, Johnson said that part of the EDA grant application had to be adjusted to exclude it from the original grant request.

“Once we were awarded the Congressional Direct Spending funding, we were asked to remove that portion from the EDA grant application,” Johnson said. “Quite honestly, I was hoping we’d still be able to get the funding for both in the event we needed more road extension. But the EDA did a very cursory review of all the Congressional Direct Spending appropriation and that flagged it, so they requested that we take the road project portion out of the grant application.” Once all the adjustments to the EDA grant application were made, Johnson said the new amount was lowered to $2.6 million. Johnson said the revised application was submitted three weeks ago and once it is approved it will go towards the construction of the sewage treatment facility. “When we get this sewage treatment funding that will complete all of our infrastructure expansion to the airport,” she said. “Which is an incredible accomplishment that’s been years in the making. We never dreamed it would have taken this long after getting the airport completed …it’s been a real challenge but there’s been a lot of partners on board with it, leveraging both private and federal investment.”