Last Minute Plea From Sharp Farm

County Commission gets last-minute plea from Sharp Farm advocates

With an already-full agenda, commissioners took time Tuesday to hear from opponents of using the Sharp Farm for the Slaty Fork Sewage Treatment Plant. They listened, but did not take action on the group's request to write a letter to the West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Develoment Council asking them to deny a $2.5 million loan slated to pay Thrasher Engineering, attorney Tom Michael, Region IV Development Council and to hire a project coordinator.

The money will also be used to evaluate other sites, according to the Pocahontas Public Service application.

The group asked the commission to act with urgency since the IJDC met Wednesday to hear the loan request.

SavetheSharpFarm.com site developer David Fleming gave the commission an ultimatum to act quickly.

Fleming said he would give commissioners until late afternoon Tuesday to comply with his request to write a letter to the IJDC that asked for the denial of a $2.5 million loan that will pay the engineer firm, attorney and other expenses. For the remainder of the day, Fleming sat outside the courthouse with a protest sign.

A computer programmer and webmaster, Fleming said the PSD had not taken minutes at the May 8 presentation by Eight Rivers Safe Development president George Phillips because it was not a meeting. Further, Fleming said, PSD members had told him they would not use the information on karst terrain Phillips had presented to them.

"It is clear that the PSD intends to build their sewage facility as originally planned, upon the Sharp Farm site, using eminent domain," he said.

Fleming asked that the commission remove PSD members Scott Millican, Bill Rexrode and Mark Smith from their positions and, thus, "remov[e] the PSD from this project."

The commission took no step in that direction.

Commissioner Martin Saffer made a motion for adjournment and an emergency session to discuss a letter to the IJDC. The motion died for lack of a second.

Saffer said he had written a letter to the IJDC as a commissioner, but not on behalf of the commission as a body. He encouraged commission president James Carpenter and commissioner Reta Griffith to do the same.

Fleming asked for Carpenter and Griffith to resign.

Neither did.

Two members of Snowshoe Property Owners Council (SPOC) told commissioners that existing rates may be low, but homeowners are opposed to what could be 10-fold increases by the time the project is completed.

In the interim, even the lowest rates will quadruple, according to Donnelle Oxley, SPOC's vice- president.

Oxley said SPOC urged the commission "very, very strongly" to go with immersible membrane technology-the plan proposed by Phillips- to retrofit Snowshoe's existing plant and to use cluster systems in the Elk River Valley.

"It's so logical," she said.

Oxley said SPOC is in the process of raising funds for legal help to fight for the Eight Rivers plan.

Another SPOC member, Dale Leatherman, said the group would rather work with commissioners than against them.

Elk River Touring and Elk River Restaurant owner Gil Willis told commissioners they should get used to a court room.

"[These] lawsuits aren't going away," he said. While he said money had already been wasted on the project, more money would be spent to defend the project in court.