CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Department of Environmental Protection’s Adopt a Highway Program will get a significant boost from the state’s largest water company. West Virginia American Water Company has entered into an Adopt a Highway Partnership in which they will be responsible for maintaining litter control and cleanup of the highway a half mile in each direction from their nine facilities in West Virginia.
“That really allows us to twice a year to go out and not only clean the highways, but really be a part of the program and help insure those highways are cleaned up and looking good,” said Megan Hannah, External Affairs Manager for West Virginia American Water Company.
There are nine water plants and treatment facilities in the West Virginia American system. Those include Route 119 in Charleston, Route 2 in Huntington, Route 4 in Gassaway, Route 15 in Webster Springs, Route 19 at South Weston, Route 2 in Bluefield, Route 18 in Hinton, Route 16 in Fayetteville, and Route 2300 in Beckwith.
“Obviously we have a great deal of source water protection monitoring and programming in place on our intakes, but this gives us an ability to get outside of the intake and look around at the highways of our facilities as well,” she said.
The Adopt-a-Highways program requires two cleanups a year. Employees of each facility can volunteer to be part of the cleanup teams according to Hannah. The first cleanup will be on Earth Day in April and another cleanup is set at each of the facilities in September.