State looks at Wyoming,
McDowell link
Jim Wallace <jimw@dailymail.com>
Daily Mail Capitol reporter
Wednesday August 28, 2002; 10:30 AM
Wyoming and McDowell counties would go from having 13 municipalities to four with a large new area for development along their border north and east of Welch under a proposal presented by a coalition of consultants to the state Disaster Recovery Board.
The consultants have determined that the three municipalities in Wyoming County -- Mullens, Pineville and Oceana -- could survive with some restructuring, but Welch is the only one of McDowell County's 10 municipalities rated as sustainable.
The Disaster Recovery Board, which Gov. Bob Wise formed after last July's devastating floods but before another round of floods hit the area this May, received the study Tuesday from the consultants without taking any action on it. The next step will be for the consultants to present it to the people of the two counties for their reaction.
"I think a lot of people are going to agree with what you're saying but they're not going to like it," board member Mike Goode told the consultants. Goode is also chairman of the Wyoming County Economic Development Authority and county clerk.
Jeff Lusk, who is also with the Wyoming County Economic Development Authority, said people in both counties realize what is happening to their communities and that new development is likely to occur in the high-elevation, strip-mined area designated by the consultants, so getting them to accept the proposal might not be difficult. However, he added that the dissolution of several long-standing communities could be harder for them to accept.
Paul Tischler of Tischler & Associates said the positive factors for the two counties included low cost of living, recreational opportunities, low utility costs and rail transportation, but they were more than outweighed by such negative factors as low levels of education, stagnant income, limited access by roads and little developable land.
The consultants used several factors to determine the long-term sustainability of each community, including the amount of developed land within floodplains. That ranged from 19 percent in Pineville to almost 57 percent in Oceana, although David Hafley of the global engineering and planning firm Parsons Brinckerhoff said recent floods have shown the floodplains may be larger than on the 1970s maps the consultants used.
"There are no redevelopment areas within most of these communities," he said.
The analysis further rated each community for long-term sustainability based on such factors as land suitability, sanitary sewer systems, population trends and the state of local government finances.
Only Mullens and Welch were rated as most sustainable. Oceana, War, Pineville, Bradshaw, Gary, Northfork and Davy fell into the less sustainable category, while Anawalt, Keystone, Iaeger and Kimball received ratings as least sustainable.
"The communities in McDowell County are physically worn out," Hafley said. However, he indicated that existing sewer systems in Oceana and Pineville in Wyoming County give them a better chance at achieving sustainability than most of their McDowell County counterparts, which lack sewer systems.
Given all the factors, Hafley said, the key question is: "In an era of limited resources, where do you want to make your investments?" The answer the consultants came up with is to give residents the opportunity to move out of old, flood-prone communities but keep them within the area by building new housing and industrial developments at higher elevations along two proposed highways, the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway.
They presented five alternatives to the Disaster Recovery Board ranging from doing nothing more than relocating residents out of floodplains to focusing development along a crescent-shaped area stretching north and east of Welch.
Tischler called the first alternative "untenable fiscally unless a lot of state and federal money is put in." A slightly more ambitious plan for consolidating some public service districts and municipalities would be nothing more than a Band-Aid approach, he said.
So the most feasible alternatives, Tischler and Hafley agreed, would depend on developing new communities on land now being strip-mined that could also take advantage of the new highways. Tischler noted that the King Coal Highway is eventually to become part of Interstate 73 and the McDowell-Wyoming county area would be the midway point between Detroit and South Carolina, which would improve development possibilities.
Tax Secretary Brian Kastick, chairman of the Disaster Recovery Board, stressed that the board merely wants to give the people of the two counties options for redevelopment, but it will be up to each community to decide its future.
"Nothing is set in stone yet," he said.
Public Safety Secretary Joe Martin, another board member, wanted to know how much the proposed redevelopment would cost. Hafley said determining the costs would be the next step after presenting the proposals to residents in a series of community meetings in the next few months.