The Marshall County Co-Op recently added a new propane plant south of New Martinsville as a way to better serve those in Wetzel and Tyler counties, while cutting down on expenses and transportation costs at the same time.

The tank, which was a tank used in Moundsville starting in 1990, now has a new home out W.Va. 7 past the 4-H camp and career center. Co-op manager David Voithofer said it’s just more economically sound for the co-op to have a location in Wetzel County

They can’t fill one of their propane delivery trucks in Moundsville at 7 a.m. and have their driver deliver south of New Martinsville – going through all the traffic and New Martinsville’s 11 stoplights – then empty the truck and then go back to Moundsville to reload.

“It’s nearly impossible,” he said.

Right now, Voithofer said, the co-op has just shy of 3,000 home heat customers from Weirton to the southern tip of Tyler County. As of now, they won’t have an office down in Wetzel County but the satellite plant will be a filling station and will have security cameras and alarms.

Placing the propane tank near New Martinsville has been a three-year project. The co-op bought the acreage in 2019, but the project was delayed one full year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Much of the time was spent with local and state government officials to make sure everything was done by the book, Voithofer said. The tank has been re-certified, and environmental and 100-year floodplain surveys were completed. The co-op worked closely with Wetzel County Emergency Management Director Steve Yoho, and the tank was moved on July 12.­

“One of the reasons he wanted to put a satellite plant south of New Martinsville is because that is our growth opportunity down there,” Voithofer said, “but our two main reasons are to better serve Wetzel and Tyler counties, and to cut our cost in transporting propane from Moundsville to those areas.

“There are a lot of people wanting to move out of the big cities and to the rural areas of the country, building cabins out in the backwoods where there is no natural gas,” he added. “They don’t want to use electric or heating oil, they don’t want to cut wood or burn coal, so propane is the best option.”

The Marshall County Co-op is owned by 1,700 local farmers and has been in existence at its current location near the Moundsville bridge since 1941. In 1951, the Southern States Co-operative out of Richmond, Virginia, came aboard through a management agreement, so and the Marshall County Co-op has been under the umbrella of Southern States since then.