Facilities
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Water Treatment Plant
The 2011 $40 million upgrade to MUB’s water treatment plant has made it a state-of-the-art facility. The plant provides both conventional multimedia rapid sand filters and innovative membrane technology. Every day the plant and its staff provide 10.5 million gallons of high quality water to meet customers needs.
What’s more, with an immediate production capacity of up to 16 million gallons of water a day and expandability of up to 24 million gallons of water a day, MUB’s water treatment plant is designed to meet the growing infrastructure needs of the Morgantown area.
It’s important to note that MUB’s water treatment plant uses two independent sources of supply: The Monongahela River and Cobun Creek Reservoir. MUB is currently completing work on a new 370 million gallon reservoir in the upper Cobun watershed that will not just provide a pristine water source but also a true secondary water source in the event of an emergency. MUB also maintains more than 10 million gallons of treated water in storage in numerous tanks across its system.
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Star City Waste Water Treatment Plant
MUB recently completed an $85 million dollar upgrade of its Star City waste water treatment plant in 2022. The plant provides advanced secondary level of treatment, using both conventional activated sludge and the innovative MBR (Membrane Bio Reactor) technologies. The MBR treatment process uses the same membrane technology that our drinking water plant uses to produce world class effluent. The plant’s current treated flow average is 10 million fully treated gallons of wastewater a day with a rated capacity of 20.8 million fully treated gallons per day.
The plant was built with future growth of the Morgantown area in mind. The plant is currently able to be expanded to 28 million gallons per day.
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Cheat Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant
A major upgrade to the Cheat Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) is planned to begin in 2025. MUB took ownership and operational responsibility for the Cheat Lake WWTP in the late 1990s. In 2001, the Cheat Lake WWTP underwent a major expansion and the Whites Run Pump Station was constructed. The plant currently serves 3,500 customers in the Cheat Lake area and is independent of the MUB owned and operated Star City WWTP system. The last sewer rate increase for the Cheat Lake service area was a decade ago in 2014.
The purpose of the project is to increase capacity of the Cheat Lake WWTP to serve customers over the next 20 years. This project will facilitate future growth and development while meeting the requirements of federal and state regulations related to water quality in the receiving water body of Cheat Lake. Currently, the plant's capacity is occasionally surpassed during large rain events when flows exceed the plant’s design. With the last major upgrade completed in 2001, Cheat Lake WWTP’s equipment and facilities are approaching the end of their service life. To maintain compliance with our NPDES permit limits while serving future development, upgrades are required.
Future upgrades will also be required of the Whites Run Pump Station and Greystone Pump Station. Due to project bids exceeding the funding capacities of this project, pump station upgrades were removed from the current project scope.
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Water and Wastewater Treatment Management
MUB utilizes a complex system called SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) to monitor and manage all components of the water and waste water treatment process. This system allows operators to make changes to treatment processes in real time, monitor the water system (water tanks levels and outputs, chemical conditions, etc.) and alerts staff when any current condition varies from normal operating ranges. SCADA also monitors Monongalia River quality and shares that information with other water utilities up and down the river.
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Water, Sewage, and Stormwater Components
As part of its overall system, MUB manages an extensive network of water, sewer, and storm facilities.
The water system is comprised of 458 miles of pipe ranging up to 36 inch in diameter. It has 38 storage tanks with a combined capacity of more than 22 million gallons, serving 42 pressure zones. Each pressure zone is independently mastered metered.
The sanitary sewer system is comprised of 383 miles of gravity sewer pipe ranging up to 60 inches in diameter. Much of the sewer system is combined (receiving both sanitary wastes and stormwater), with the system incregulated CSO’s (Combined Sewer Overflows). The system also has 84 sewage pumping stations, with force mains ranging up to 36 inches in diameter.
The stormwater system includes 105 miles of storm pipe of varying sizes and shapes, and nearly 4000 inlets. It also includes an undetermined number and length of ditches and streams which combine with the hard infrastructure to provide a complete storm network.