ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Board of Commissioners recently agreed to invest in infrastructure improvements.

The board approved a proposal from ADR & Associates for the Rural Development Preliminary Engineering report for the Summerhill and clinic pump station basins, with an estimated consulting fee of $15,500.

The board also approved an addendum to an agreement from Dec. 7 with Prime A.E. Group Inc. for a time and materials work order not to exceed $35,000 for general engineering services for a preliminary engineering report for added water systems projects.

Commissioner Mark Thomas said this is part of a continuing plan to work on projects for the sanitary sewer district. This includes combining projects and potentially borrowing money to repair, maintain and upgrade water and sewer facilities in the county.

Additional planned projects include necessary upgrades to facilities such as the pump station near the Ohio Valley Mall and the Fox Shannon wastewater treatment plant, which officials said requires $5 million in upgrades.

“We’re going to lump it into one loan with USDA at whatever rate is fixed at the time we’re able to do it for 40 years,” Thomas said. “This is all tied in to a master plan that the county is putting together with regard to its infrastructure. … This will be the sum of many different parts that allows us to borrow a large sum of money at a low interest rate, fixed, for 40 years that will allow us to do a lot of infrastructure work that’s needed in the existing infrastructure and will also allow us to expand.”