Huntington Mayor Steve Williams and Gov. Jim Justice drive by means of sections of Huntington ravaged by heavy rains and flooding final week. (Picture courtesy of the WV Governor’s Workplace)

CHARLESTON — State officers introduced Monday that West Virginia obtained the second half of the $1.35 billion American Rescue Plan Act funds, giving West Virginia further funds to fight COVID-19 and start work on much-needed ingesting water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure initiatives.
Throughout his first-of-the-week digital briefings from the State Capitol Constructing Monday morning, Gov. Jim Justice mentioned the state obtained one other $677 million from the federal authorities, bringing the overall variety of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to $1.35 billion. West Virginia obtained the primary of its state allotment final 12 months.
“The second tranche of that has are available now,” Justice mentioned. “We have to be prudent and good in what we’re doing … We’ve been so upside-down within the many years of the previous once we didn’t have any cash to show round. We didn’t know what to do. Now now we have it going. With this we’re simply going to attempt to do increasingly and extra goodness for West Virginia.”
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, handed and signed into regulation by President Joe Biden in March 2021, supplied $350 billion in direct funds for states. The newest in a number of payments to offer COVID-19 restoration and response funding, ARPA permits states to make use of their allotments for water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure initiatives.
Throughout a particular session of the West Virginia Legislature in April, lawmakers accepted a plan by Justice to offer $250 million in ARPA {dollars} to the Financial Enhancement Grant Fund by means of the West Virginia Water Improvement Authority. The fund will present matching grants to municipalities for water and sewer infrastructure initiatives.
“We put up $250 million in a bucket,” Justice mentioned. “Principally, it’s going for use with matching {dollars} and every little thing to have the ability to do sewer and water initiatives all throughout our state. Now, they’ve obtained to qualify and so they’ve obtained to qualify throughout the phrases and circumstances of the ARPA invoice in its entirety. So, we’ll have initiatives that we’ll provide up and we’ll stroll them by means of all of the totally different steps and every little thing, after which see if we are able to get them certified and every little thing.”
In keeping with steering from the U.S. Treasury Division, ARPA funds may also be used for administration and therapy of stormwater or subsurface drainage water; watershed initiatives assembly sure Clear Water Act standards as decided by the usEnvironmental Safety Company; or reuse/recycling of wastewater, stormwater, or subsurface drainage water.
Stormwater points have not too long ago been within the headlines after a collection of heavy rains hit Cabell, Putnam, and Roane counties earlier in Could. Justice declared a state of emergency for these counties, the place in some circumstances greater than 4 inches of rain fell in a brief period of time. Officers in Huntington positioned the blame on stormwater drainage points.
“Our terrain, you realize, is horizontal principally … water with nowhere to go,” Justice mentioned. “We will get in a scenario very, in a short time the place swiftly now we have a flooding subject wherever. We have to always be making an attempt to do initiatives that diminish or remove the hazards of flooding, as a result of we don’t have locations for individuals to construct or simply limitless degree properties and every little thing.”
West Virginia has at all times been vulnerable to flooding, however the points have been made clear after the June 2016 historic 1,000-year flood occasions that introduced destruction throughout a number of southern and central West Virginia counties. The state continues to be struggling to get well from that flood, with hundreds of thousands in federal funds nonetheless being spent on restoration and mitigation.
The state was as soon as once more labeled a “gradual spender” in a Could 1 report by the U.S. Home and City Improvement, which awarded the state’s RISE West Virginia program $149.9 million in 2018 in Group Improvement Block Grant-Catastrophe Get better funds for counties affected by the 2016 floods. The state nonetheless has greater than $60 million in unspent CDBG-DR funds.
States obtain a “gradual spender” designation once they spend lower than 10 p.c of the month-to-month tempo required to totally use the grant by the grant’s goal closeout. As of final December, the RISE program was underneath state and federal investigation
HUD additionally awarded the state greater than $106 million in a CDBG grant for flood mitigation in those self same counties. CDBG-Mitigation funds have to be used for initiatives that improve resilience to flooding, reduce the affect of future pure disasters, scale back the chance of lack of lives and property in addition to future struggling and hardship.
The CDBG-Mitigation funds can solely be spent in 12 counties affected by the 2016 flood: Clay, Greenbrier, Kanawha, Nicholas, Fayette, Jackson, Lincoln, Monroe, Pocahontas, Roane, Summers, and Webster counties. As of the top of 2021, $65 million for 18 initiatives had been accepted by the state, with functions for initiatives for the remaining $40 million being accepted this 12 months.
In keeping with a report final October by the First Avenue Basis which research dangers from local weather change, 17 of the highest 20 U.S. counties most in danger from flooding are in Louisiana, Florida, West Virginia, and Kentucky. In keeping with the report, “… there are 128,067 residential properties, 50,284 miles of roads, 11,072 industrial properties, 1,107 infrastructure services, and 968 social services with operational flood danger right this moment.”
Talking Monday, Justice mentioned he wish to see flood mitigation initiatives, akin to constructing extra man-made lakes, dams, and different management buildings utilizing obtainable funds. However he acknowledged that the allowing processes for brand new initiatives by means of federal businesses, such because the EPA and the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers, decelerate the approval of such initiatives.
“We simply have to assume large, and thus far we’re engaged on these initiatives, however now we have not gotten to the place we are able to actually hit residence with them. The allowing course of is gigantic,” Justice mentioned. “If now we have a possibility right here throughout the {dollars} that now we have to have the ability to do a few of these initiatives, we have to maintain doing them and we have to maintain doing extra … If we don’t attempt to discover a method to step up by means of all of the automobiles which might be obtainable to us right this moment, whether or not they be matching funds with the federal authorities or no matter it could be, we’d like to have the ability to proceed to step up.”
On prime of West Virginia’s $1.35 billion in ARPA funds, municipalities and counties within the state obtained a mixed $679 million from ARPA, which they’ll use independently, accomplice with a neighbor municipality of county, or leverage their funds with state ARPA funding. Funding by means of the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) is obtainable by means of its Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
One other avenue of funding might come from surplus tax income {dollars}. The state is anticipated to finish the fiscal 12 months in June with greater than $1 billion in tax income. As soon as gadgets put behind the brand new fiscal 12 months 2023 funds get funds by means of obtainable surplus, the state might seemingly have greater than $250 million in obtainable surplus deposited within the basic income fund.
A particular session of the Legislature is anticipated for June to find out what to do with the remaining surplus {dollars}. Plus, a invoice handed final 12 months requires legislative approval to spend any federal COVID funding that totals greater than $150 million.
“We’re grateful to get one other tranche of the ARP cash,” Justice mentioned. “The most important problem now we have, and I feel the Legislature and I are doing precisely that: handle it. Run the shop the proper method. Don’t simply throw away stuff on pet initiatives. Handle it, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Steven Allen Adams could be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com