The Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission has supported a request by Mathews County to rejoin a regional water plan.

The commission “welcomed Mathews with open arms” during a meeting July 26 at its Saluda headquarters, said Beth Johnson, finance director for MPPDC.

At its meeting on June 27, the commission had said it would support the county’s request to rejoin if that county’s board of supervisors agreed to pay a fee. The Mathews board voted 3-2 in favor of the agreement (with supervisors G.C. Morrow and Charles Ingram in opposition) during a meeting July 25.

Under terms of the county’s reinstatement in the regional water plan, Mathews will pay $5,182.45 to the MPPDC and $6,675 to EEE Consulting Inc. of Mechanicsville, the company that prepared the plan.

Those costs are in addition to the $6,058 that MPPDC had in retained local funds from the 2011 Water Supply Plan Project that were already slated for expenditure on the update. In addition, a...