Beech Bottom Lands $3.3 Million to Fix Water Tanks and Finish Long-Stalled Route 2 Hydrant Project

Folks in the little Ohio River village of Beech Bottom have been running on one water tank for more than a year. Now help is finally on the way. Governor Patrick Morrisey traveled to Brooke County on Thursday, Oct. 29, to announce more than $3.3 million in water infrastructure funding aimed squarely at the Northern Panhandle community, according to the governor's office.

The money tackles two problems that have been hanging over the village for a long time: a pair of aging water storage tanks and a water main and fire hydrant project along Route 2 that had been stuck for years.

First up are the tanks. Beech Bottom has two storage tanks sitting side by side, and together they serve roughly 550 residents along with local industrial sites. The state is picking up the entire $283,000 bill to repair both of them through the Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council's Critical Needs Fund.

Tank 1 has a leaking valve, and the governor's office said work on that fix will start right away without interrupting anyone's water service. Tank 2 has been out of service altogether because of a crack in its floor, a crack officials said put the foundation of both tanks at risk. Once that job is scheduled, the floor repairs are expected to take four to six weeks.

Local leaders made it clear how close the village came to real trouble. Losing that second tank, too, would have been devastating for a community this size, and the state stepping in to cover the full cost means the repairs won't land on local ratepayers.

The second piece of the package is a project folks along Route 2 have been waiting on since 2020. That year, Beech Bottom landed a federal award for a water main and fire hydrant loop. But construction costs kept climbing, and the project stalled in a multi-year standstill with the money on paper and no shovels in the ground.

To break that logjam, the state is putting in $400,000 from the Governor's Civil Contingent Fund. That closes out a roughly $3 million funding package that also pulls together money from the West Virginia Water Development Authority, Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council loans, debt taken on by the Beech Bottom Water Board and the original federal grant. With the full package in hand, officials said construction can begin immediately.

When it's done, the Route 2 project will close a gap in the village's water system. That should put an end to the drops in water pressure that show up when industrial users are pulling heavy amounts of water, and it will put fire hydrants along the entire length of the Beech Bottom Industrial Park. Better fire protection and steadier water are the kind of basics that help a community hang on to the businesses it has and attract new ones.

The Beech Bottom announcement is part of a bigger statewide push. The governor's office said it follows the recent finalization of more than $58 million in water and wastewater project packages across West Virginia.

For a village that has spent more than a year holding its breath over a single working water tank, this is the kind of news that lets everybody breathe a little easier. Here's to steady water pressure, working hydrants and a little good news for the Northern Panhandle.