ELKINS — Elkins City Council will discuss during its next meeting some of the potential uses of the more than $2 million left over from building the city’s new water plant.

This funding came to the city from the Rural Utilities Service of the United States Department of Agriculture to begin replacement of the previous water plant in 2016.

The large water project consisted of building the new water plant, installing a new reservoir tank, 41 new fire hydrants, a new pumping station with backup generators, new intakes and raw-water pumps and 43,540 feet of new water lines. Old and deteriorated sections of pipes were removed as well.

The city was approved $37 million for the project, split between funding from the USDA as well as the Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council, and there are now $2.1 to $2.8 million left over in excess funds.

“The key issue there are those bond payments for that loan money comes from the people who pay their water bills and, as such, it cannot be diverted for any other purpose whether it’s paving streets, whether it’s building a bridge or hiring a police officer, anything like that,” explained Bob Pingley, operations manager for the city. “That money has to, by state law, stay in the water fund. As a result, all of the things that we’re asking to use the excess monies for have to be water related, or the USDA would flat turn it down.”

If these funds are left unutilized, they will be reapplied to the loan to begin paying it back.

The excess funding was due, in part, to the fact that contractors tend to over-estimate costs of bulk materials such as stone or concrete when drafting budgets and quotes for projects, so they can ensure they have enough.

“When the contractor submits their payment invoices, they submit what they’ve actually used as far as unit price materials. Engineers tend to be a little conservative so, in several cases, we were able to save money on those types of things,” he said. “If you’re going for bonds, you don’t want to undershoot and have to try to scare up more money. It’s better to be a little conservative and make sure you’re covered.”

Pingley presented potential uses for these excess funds to both the Finance Committee and Elkins City Council earlier in February. Council approved the uses, pending additional approval from the USDA.

One use for the funds would be to replace nearly all of the water meters within city limits.

“The city put in the radio-read meters a little before my time… They have an electronic component and they also have a battery inside so they don’t have an unlimited life and the original warranty was 10 years,” Pingley said.

Because of the failing electronics, the City of Elkins missed 645 meter readings in the month of January, he said.

“We replaced some of them over the last three or four years but still, the majority of them are the originals, from the original project,” Pingley said.

Pingley explained that the newer models would have longer warranties and would not need to be replaced as quickly in the future.

Other proposed projects for these funds include maintenance on the flood control levees, repairing the access road to the water plant and purchasing new equipment and spare parts for the plant.

“Some of the items are going to be on next week’s council agenda in the form of a change order. USDA informed us that that’s the way we would need to go. It will be a contract add-on or a change order to the contractor that did the water plant work,” Pingley said.

Elkins City Council will meet Wednesday at 7 p.m. at City Hall. The date was moved from Thursday to accommodate the Elkins-Randolph County Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards dinner.