LEWISBURG (WVDN) – At the regular, September Lewisburg City Council meeting there were 45 guests attending who were interested in the closure plans for the southern section of The Greenbrier River Trail.
A roughly two-mile stretch of the trail is set to be closed to allow for the construction of a new water intake system for the Lewisburg water department.
During the council meeting, an announcement was made by engineer Greg Belcher of Chapman Technical Group of St. Albans, the firm overseeing the water project.
Belcher announced a change in the construction plan had been agreed upon which. The change will close the section of trail for 15 months, ending in February 2024, and includes new parking access to the trail at Harper Road to handle the additional parking needs.
Signs promoting this would be placed at various Greenbrier River Trail intake locations.
Other information came forward during the regular council meeting directly related to the interest of the audience.
When discussing Resolution 499, a pay request for invoices related to water system improvements, councilmember John Little asked for some clarification on why there were bills to be paid now for services rendered to the city in 2018.
The discussion concluded that because the project of the Lewisburg city water plant and distribution system was started in 2018, there were services rendered at that time by Region 4 Planning and Development Council to do preliminary studies and begin preparing the project.
Region 4 Planning and Development Council executive director John Tuggle was present at the meeting and said that the invoice was not submitted to the city until the financing had been acquired. Tuggle also stated that this invoice brought the account up to date and there would be no further invoices from Region 4 prior to the start of construction.
Later in the evening, this information of the water project beginning in 2018 became even more important, when the council concluded their regular agenda, and the public speaking began.
Questions were asked and opinions of the speakers were expressed. Of the 45 guests in attendance, six took the podium to make statements.
After the public comment portion of the meeting, direct questions from the audience, which had been taken as notes by Little and councilmember Sarah Elkins, were presented to Tuggle and Belcher by the two councilmembers on behalf of the speakers.
The answers were mostly given by Belcher.
The meeting concluded with this following information:
- The trail will be closed for 15 months, slightly longer if weather becomes difficult, from north of the Caldwell trailhead to where Harper Road reaches the trail north of Lewisburg.
- The construction site is from mile marker 3.9 at the current pump station near Caldwell to mile marker to 5.8 at Harper Road. The equipment will take up the full width of the trail, and the ditch will be ¾ the width of the trail at some points.
- The location for the new water intake is two miles north of the present mid-stream location. The location of the new water intake system was chosen, and the land purchased, by a previous city council in 2018 because of fears of potential surface water contamination of the river.
- The pipe to be laid under the trail is 24” in diameter and in 20-foot-long sections, weighing 1800 pounds each. The trench it will be laid in will be six feet deep and wide. The fill for the trench will be compacted by the equipment being used to refill it.
- For a year after the complete restoration of the trail surface, the contractor will be responsible for trench settlement mitigation After that, the city of Lewisburg will be responsible for maintaining the completed pipe and intake system.
- To accommodate use of the trail at this new southern terminus of Harper Road, there will be five parking spaces constructed to start with, then after the leaves fall from the trees, and bats have gone into hibernation, there will be some forest removal done to create and additional 10-15 parking spaces.
- The Greenbrier River Trail’s 78-mile length will be shortened during this period by fewer than 10 miles.
