Notoriously underfunded EKY water system receives $26M from state for improvements
Nearly half of newly authorized state grant money to help improve rural water systems in the commonwealth is headed to an Eastern Kentucky county notorious for some of Appalachia’s poorest quality drinking water.
Martin County is slated to receive $26 million from a $52 million General Assembly allocation approved late last week. Gov. Andy Beshear signed the legislation Monday.
“This legislation is important because it will help deliver clean, safe water and modern infrastructure to Kentuckians in rural communities, including Martin County, which has faced challenges for far too long,” Beshear said in a statement.
The county, well-known for high costs, filthy tap water and aging infrastructure, was notably absent from last year’s $87.3 million appropriation, a fact local leaders chalked up to bad application management on the part of the area development district and state agency scoring they say missed the mark.
Meanwhile, the Kentucky Public Service Commission denied the county’s request to end state monitoring earlier this month, prolonging Frankfort’s oversight of a drinking water system plagued by shoddy management and costly leaks.
Situated on the bank of the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River along Kentucky’s border with West Virginia, Martin County has long been known as the state’s “poster child” for expensive, poor-quality water. Its “dubious honor,” the county’s judge-executive says, began more than 25 years ago when a coal slurry spill contaminated the suface-water supply with cancer-causing disinfection byproducts and bacteria.
The 2000 spill set off a public health crisis in the community that led to widespread and persistent distrust in the county’s drinking water supply and the people who manage it. Nearly 9 in 10 county residents still use bottled water to drink, bathe and brush their teeth, according to a 2020 University of Kentucky study.
County leaders identified nearly 20 drinking water system rehab projects that need funding under the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority’s Water and Wastewater Assistance for Troubed or Econmically Restrained Systems program when lawmakers first compiled their list of priority projects last year.
Eight will receive state money this year to construct water system booster and pump stations, install water lines and pay off debts, plus minor tank repairs and painting. The county sewer district will get a $6.6 million grant to construct a new, countywide lift station, replace gravity lines and pay off debts.
“I’ve had conversations with the Governor in the past, and he’s assured me he is on top of our water plight here in our county,” Martin County Judge-Executive Lon Lafferty said in a statement. “This money will help so many Kentuckians.”
The $52 million the legislature earmarked this year exhausts the pot of money carved out of the budget in 2024 to bail out the most underfunded and detirorating water and sewer systems in the state, despite two $75 million allocations in fiscal years 2025 and 2026 and a handful of emergency grants.
Beshear signed a bill into law last week toughening the minimum critera water systems have to meet to receive WWATERS funding. It also excludes projects that expand utility service. The bill took immediate effect and applied to this year’s grant allocation.
Eastern Kentucky and broader central Appalachia have strugged to deliver drinking water to rural mountain residents for decades. Natural disasters repeatedly overwhelm aging systems that have struggled to catch up as county populations slide and fewer customers pay into the system. Lafferty said Martin County residents could be facing yet another water and wastewater rate increase soon.
“In Eastern Kentucky especially, we have persistent poverty and a trajectory of decline of the coal industry over the last decade or two,” Mary Cromer, deputy director of the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center told the Herald-Leader. “That hurts local utilities.”
All but $15.2 million of this year’s $52 million WWATERS grant funding are headed to Kentucky’s easternmost counties. The rural Casey County city of Liberty was the primary exception, earning a massive $12 million from the state to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant.
The other two exceptions included a $1.2 million disinfection byproduct mitigation and system improvement project in Smithland in Livingston County, and a new tank and waterline extension in the city of Oak Grove, south of Hopkinsville.
Remaining beneficiaries include less than $1 million for a water treatment plant in the small Harlan County city of Evarts, $8.7 million for two water systems in Floyd County and $1.3 million for debt repayments in the Elkhorn City water system in Pike County.
