Clarksburg (West Virginia) Water Board voted to purchase three new trucks

“We have three trucks that meet the criteria to get rid of,” said Distribution Director Robert Fazzini. “Our fleet will be good until 2031 with these three trucks before we have to start replacing vehicles again.”

The board will be trading in three trucks for three 2023 Ford F-150s at Statewide Ford. The new trucks will feature a crew cab with four doors and a five-and-a-half-foot bed.

The dealership will allow the board to provide a $1,000 deposit to hold the trucks until next fiscal year, according to Jason Myers, general manager of the Water Board.

“We’re going to save about $5,000 per vehicle by purchasing these trucks off of Statewide Ford,” Myers said. “We won’t have to buy another vehicle for the next six to seven years.”

Also during Wednesday’s meeting, board members discussed the ongoing South Chestnut Street waterline replacement project.

During the initial project, workers found a 16-inch line in poor condition that will need to be replaced, according to Myers.

“We had people tapped into that line, so we got to take those taps off of that 16-inch line and put them onto a brand-new 24-inch main on Chestnut Street,” he said.

“Once we get the new 16-inch line up through the old 24-inch line on South Chestnut Street, we can abandon that 16-inch line from Garfield and pave that intersection up there,” he said.

From the intersection, crews will dig to Harvey Street to put in new pipe.

“That’s going to be an open cut, and they are going to put a C-900 in up there,” Myers said.

Water Board members also discussed a change in grant funds for Phase 3-A of the lead line replacement project.

This phase will include the neighborhoods of North View, Stealey, Chestnut Hills and parts of downtown, as well as Rosebud Avenue and Van Buren Street, Myers said.

“We just found out that instead of $12 million in Economic Enhancement Grant fund money that we were supposed to get, we got reduced to $8.5 million,” he said. “The $3.5 million that was taken away, we have to borrow additional for that.”

Changes in funding will be discussed, revised and presented to the Water Board for approval during its next meeting.