By: Aaron Ambrose
For over two decades, residents of Martin County, Kentucky, have faced severe difficulties with accessing clean and affordable drinking water.[i] These issues began when, in 2000, a massive coal slurry impoundment broke in the county and sent 306 million gallons of toxic sludge into the county’s water source, contaminating groundwater and residents’ wells in the process.[ii] The spilling of the coal slurry, which contained high levels of arsenic and mercury, is regarded as one of the worst environmental catastrophes in the south-eastern United States.[iii] This contamination has resulted in the residents of Martin County experiencing years of water insecurities.[iv] The slurry was eventually cleaned up, but resulted in devastating effects that still linger over twenty years later.[v]
While the coal slurry has certainly played a major role in the lack of clean drinking water in Martin County, it is not the only factor responsible. Another key factor is that the infrastructure and distribution systems have been neglected and mismanaged for decades, resulting in the water system having multiple issues and frequent failures.[vi]One example of this neglect is the Martin County water treatment plant, which was built in the 1960s to serve 600 households but is now responsible for serving the entire county’s approximately 4316 households despite minimal updates.[vii] Another major issue faced by the county is that the distribution system is substandard, resulting at times in untreated groundwater entering the lines and coming out of resident’s taps, exposing the citizens to potentially contaminated and polluted water.[viii] In 2017 alone, the county reported twenty-nine line breaks which resulted in the residents having to boil their water to ensure its safety.[ix] It is estimated that there are about $55 million worth of essential repairs needed, with no clear answer as to how it will be financed.[x]
Despite the various obstacles the county has faced in their attempt to provide safe drinking water, there have been some improvements.[xi] On July 1, 2020, a report was released regarding Martin County, which expressed that outside of a flooding issue that resulted in some possible contamination, the drinking water did not present any major violations in any of the major categories including radioactive contaminants and disinfectant byproducts and precursors.[xii] Despite this, the tap water today has a strong chlorine odor, and there have been continued reports of bad tastes, discoloration, sediment and irritated or burning skin after bathing.[xiii] Given the problems still apparent with the water supply, the residents remain skeptical of the safety of the water.[xiv] According to a study by the University of Kentucky, “96% of the residents rely primarily on bottled water for drinking.”[xv] The citizens' concerns appear to be validated for in 2018, researchers at the University of Kentucky performed a study of the water quality of Martin County, which included sampling water from ninety-seven homes and revealed that the drinking water regularly exceeded U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maximum levels for cancer-causing disinfection byproducts and coliform bacteria.[xvi]
While there is certainly more to be done to ensure that each resident of Martin County is provided with clean, affordable drinking water, certain obstacles remain present even today. One of the primary issues is the county’s lack of financial resources and the approximate $800,000 the county has in debt.[xvii] To combat this, the county has taken various measures, including raising water rates numerous times.[xviii] This has proven to provide extreme hardships to the residents of the county however, given the fact that the county has a 34 percent poverty rate.[xix] To put that in perspective, the average poverty rate in the state of Kentucky is 16.3 percent.[xx] The county is again proposing a rate increase, which would essentially double what the residents were paying just four years earlier.[xxi] This increase has been proposed despite a recent study performed, which concluded that water is unaffordable for 45.8 percent of Martin County residents.[xxii] With increasing rates and residents unable to pay their water bill, it appears that the county is in desperate need of funding from the federal and state government. While Martin County has been granted millions in funds from various agencies, much of the funding has been stalled, leaving the residents to suffer increasing water bills and lackluster water.[xxiii]
With no end in sight, and no clear plan to provide clean, affordable water to residents of Martin County, many are left feeling hopeless.[xxiv] The citizens have been without clean, reliable water for over twenty years, and many remain skeptical that it will ever change.[xxv] More must be done to ensure the people of Martin County are afforded the basic, human right of clean and affordable drinking water. To combat this crisis, several steps must be taken. First, given the poverty experienced by the citizens, water rates should be reduced, and their rates frozen to make the water more affordable and accessible for more people. Next, federal and state funding should be directed towards addressing the immediate needs of the water district which include updating the system and fixing service and main water lines.[xxvi] Furthermore, there should be restrictions placed on what the grant money can be spent on, thus ensuring that the excess funding will be used to address the water crisis rather than other projects. Along these lines, more funding needs to be granted to the county to address their water needs from both the federal and state level. Funding by the state and federal governments has been minimal, falling short of the estimated $55 million worth or repairs needed to fix the water system.[xxvii] Given the poverty experienced by Martin County, it is evident that they do not have the financial resources to do it on their own, and until they are provided with the proper funding and guidance, residents will likely continue to be without clean, affordable drinking water.[xxviii]
[i] Sydney Boles, First These Kentuckians Couldn’t Drink the Water. Now They Can’t Afford It, NPR (Oct. 31, 2019, 5:00 AM),https://www.npr.org/2019/10/31/772677717/first-these-kentuckians-couldnt-drink-the-water-now-they-can-t-afford-it[https://perma.cc/UQ3G-E6YF].
[ii] Id.
[iii] Nina Lakhani, “it smells bad, it tastes bad’: how Americans stopped trusting their water, The Guardian (Sept. 22, 2020, 5:15 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/22/martin-county-kentucky-tap-water [https://perma.cc/873G-48AN].
[iv] Boles, supra note 1.
[v] Boles, supra note 1.
[vi] Mary Cromer & Ricki Draper, Drinking Water Affordability Crisis Martin County, Kentucky, Appalachian Citizens’ L. Ctr. & Martin Cnty. Concerned Citizens, (Sept. 6, 2021), https://aclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Drinking-Water-Affordability-Crisis-Martin-County-Kentucky-1.pdf [https://perma.cc/X9JQ-GBHF].
[vii] Id.
[viii] Id.
[ix] Brandon Roberst, Letter sent to Martin County residents suggests ‘cloudy’ water is safe; report highlights improved quality, Spectrum News 1 (July 1, 2021, 3:40 PM), https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2021/06/30/positive-report-for-martin-county-water [https://perma.cc/M2Y4-2XGL].
[x] Bryce Shreve, PSC authorizes emergency rate increase for Martin County’s troubled water system, Spectrum News 1 (July 9, 2021 12:30 PM), https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2021/07/09/martin-county-water-emergency-rate-increase [https://perma.cc/Z96H-AEE6].
[xi] Id.
[xii] Id.
[xiii] Lakhani, supra note 3.
[xiv] Nina Lakhani, “It smells bad, it tastes bad’: how Americans stopped trusting their water, The Guardian (Sept. 22, 2020, 5:15 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/22/martin-county-kentucky-tap-water [https://perma.cc/RXW3-RUF2].
[xv] Lakhani, supra note 3.
[xvi] Roberts, supra note 10.
[xvii] Cromer & Draper, supra note 6.
[xviii] Katie Myers, With Infrastructure Funding on Horizon, Beleaguered Martin County Looks to Raise Water Rates Again, Ohio Valley Res. (May 17, 2021), https://wfpl.org/with-infrastructure-funding-on-horizon-beleaguered-martin-county-looks-to-raise-water-rates-again/ [https://perma.cc/AKC5-R69J].
[xix] Id.
[xx] Quickfacts Kentucky, U.S. Census Bureau (Sept. 6, 2021), https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/KY/POP060210 [https://perma.cc/T7FQ-VA56].
[xxi] Myers, supra note 18.
[xxii] Cromer & Draper, supra note 6.
[xxiii] Katie Myers, With Infrastructure Funding on Horizon, Beleaguered Martin County Looks to Raise Water Rates Again, Ohio Valley Res. (May 16, 2021), https://www.wkyufm.org/post/infrastructure-funding-horizon-beleaguered-martin-county-looks-raise-water-rates-again#stream/0 [https://perma.cc/7NA5-DEML].
[xxiv] Buddy Forbes, ‘In 2021 it should be different’: Martin County community waits for water, WYMT (Mar. 22, 2021, 8:18 PM), https://www.wymt.com/2021/03/23/in-2021-it-should-be-different-martin-county-community-waits-for-water/ [https://perma.cc/2E63-DNWT].
[xxv] Boles, supra note 1.
[xxvi] Cromer & Draper, supra note 6.
[xxvii] Shreve, supra note 10.
[xxviii] See Myers, supra note 18.