On this West Virginia Morning, foster kids often don’t have anywhere to go when they turn 18, but a new program in Philippi, Barbour County is working to help provide housing and work for some of them.
On this West Virginia Morning, foster kids often don’t have anywhere to go when they turn 18, but a new program in Philippi, Barbour County is working to help provide housing and work for some of them. Caroline MacGregor reports.
Also, in this show, we have a new story from The Allegheny Front. Their latest story explores the new rules for lead water service lines.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
The bipartisan infrastructure bill that became law last month has billions of dollars in it for roads, bridges, airports and transit systems in the Ohio Valley.
The law also addresses some of the region’s other pressing needs.
The $1 trillion infrastructure law has the potential to deliver big improvements to Appalachia. It will help reclaim abandoned mine sites, putting laid-off coal miners back to work.
It will help replace lead water pipes and clean up chemical contamination in water supplies.
It will also bring much-needed high-speed internet to rural communities, helping seniors on fixed incomes and children whose schools closed down during the coronavirus pandemic.
While some of the funding will produce immediate benefit for the region, other improvements may take years to complete. People familiar with the region’s needs see both short- and long-term impacts from the law.
Appalachian states have an abundance of mines that were abandoned before 1977, and they present hazards to public safety and the environment.
The infrastructure bill dedicates $11.3 billion to abandoned mine reclamation. Adam Wells, regional director for economic and community development for Appalachian Voices, said the bill offers two things the region desperately needs.
“I think the top line here is that it can immediately put people to work in coalfield communities, using skills and equipment that folks have at the ready,” he said, “and the benefit of environmental remediation is great to see as well.”
Wells said one challenge will be putting the people in place to administer the funding, which he said is the largest sum ever dedicated to mine reclamation.
“So they’re going to have to really rapidly staff up and get new systems in place to get that money back out the door at the pace that’s needed,” he said.
Coalfield communities have been promised either a rebound in coal, or an influx of new jobs building solar panels and other clean energy technology. So far, neither has materialized.
Wells said mine reclamation buys time for Appalachia to build a new, diversified and more resilient economy.
“Reclamation feels pretty grounded in what is possible, and what’s happening,” Wells said.
The infrastructure law includes $50 billion in Environmental Protection Agency funds to upgrade the country’s drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems.
Critically, it enables the replacement of lead service pipes. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, brought the issue to the forefront. More recently, the water system in Clarksburg, West Virginia, was revealed to have elevated levels of lead in drinking water.
Clarksburg is in the process of replacing its lead service lines.
The water funds will also help state and local governments address another growing problem: Contamination from PFAS, or forever chemicals.
Much of the funding will flow through state revolving funds. Todd Grinstead, executive director of the West Virginia Rural Water Association, said the assistance is welcome.
“You’re looking at quite an increase in funding for our state revolving funds, both the clean water and the drinking water side,” he said.
Grinstead said the large increase in state revolving funds can allow water systems to retire debt. That keeps them from having to charge their customers more to make needed investments.
“And when utilities do projects, they don’t like increasing bills for people. They like to do it cheap as they can,” he said. “But it’s also necessary to do the upgrades to be able to keep the quality of service up.”
With population loss in many coalfield communities, water systems aren’t adding many new customers. But they still have to repair and replace the infrastructure they have.
“It’s one thing to get money and install pipes and stuff. But time goes by pretty quick,” Grinstead said. “And next thing, you know, you’ve got stuff that needs replaced.”
The COVID pandemic laid bare one of the biggest disparities between population centers and rural communities: Access to high-speed internet.
Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, said frustrated parents drove their kids to school parking lots to get WiFi.
Lee said some schools brought buses to remote communities to attempt to connect students to the internet. It couldn’t reach all of them, he said.
“In our rural state, like we have in West Virginia, this is a major problem,” he said. “And it’s a problem, not only for education and our students, but it’s for attracting businesses too.”
Some liken it to the rural electrification efforts of the 1930s, which proved transformative for large portions of the country but took years to build.
“It is a very helpful thing. And the key now is to use the funds and get things going as quickly as possible,” Lee said. “But again, it’s not gonna happen overnight.”
Lee said educators from across the country gave input as lawmakers developed the broadband component of the infrastructure bill.
Lee said it has to be affordable for low-income families and seniors on fixed incomes. The law does include funding to reimburse households for a portion of their monthly internet costs.
“I mean, this is not an easy task,” he said. “It will take some time plus, you also have to provide some assistance to low income families to ensure that their kids can have this connectivity.”
Thousands of homes in Clarksburg have received water filtration pitchers and notices in the past few months. The notice lets residents know their drinking water is flowing through lead pipes.
Tom Friddle, 60, got a filter and he plans on using it. He stood in this front yard with a small dog on a leash.
“I got a dog and cat. They’re my kids. So I’ll make sure their water is just as fresh as mine,” said Friddle.
The local fire department, water utility, and state National Guard have hand delivered more than 3,000 filters to these homes and businesses.
June Leffler / WVPB
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Millions of Americans get their water through lead service lines. The alarm sounded in Clarksburg when three children in town tested positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood.
The State Department of Health and Human Resources says 31 children in Harrison County presented elevated lead levels in 2020. Same goes for 447 children in West Virginia from 2015 to 2019.
June Leffler / WVPB
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Firefighters Justin Weber (left) and Jadden Marino (right) plan their route to distribute about 100 water filters throughout Clarksburg.
On the same street as Friddle and his dog, Tommy Dodd stood on his porch reading his notice. The houses on his street were built in the early 1900s. He figured this notice might be coming.
“The only thing we’ve used our water for in the last three or four months was just to wash our clothes, take a shower in,” Dodd said. “I don’t even think it was a great idea to use it to rinse off our toothbrushes. But we did that.”
Dodd has lived in this home for 14 years, on and off again. He has three sons, ages 12, 14, and 17. When Dodd moved back to this street, his middle son, Keenan, was in first grade.
“His attention, his focus, his memory. It’s like he can’t do two or three steps at one time,” Dodd said.
Kids exposed to certain lead levels can develop cognitive and behavioral issues. Dodd plans to ask for a lead test during his son’s next routine checkup. Keenan is starting high school this year.
“I can’t say it’s the lead,” Dodd said. “Ever since we lived here, he’s had trouble in school.”
Taking responsibility
There are about 8,500 homes, businesses and other customers that get their drinking water from the local public utility. Of those, about a quarter are suspected to have lead services pipes, based on records reviewed by the Clarksburg Water Board.
The water board says it has regularly sampled water over the years to check for elevated lead levels in accordance with federal standards.
“We’ve always been in compliance. So to be notified that we had a home out of compliance was shocking,” said Clarksburg Water Board President Paul Howe.
So far, 33 homes have been confirmed as having high levels of lead in their drinking water. Just 6% of customers have had their water tested at this point.
The water board says no school, hospital or daycare in Clarksburg has shown elevated lead levels.
June Leffler / WVPB
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The Clarksburg Water Board is creating an interactive map that will display where lead service lines are in its water system.
But the water board will keep testing and reviewing lines. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Bureau for Public Health have ordered the public utility to fix the problem on their own dime.
“If we can get in there and replace the lines that are causing us problems now and do a greater system upgrade, I think that might be in the best interest for our public,” Howe said.
To assure Clarksburg customers and health agencies that the water is safe, the board signed off on an action plan on Aug. 18.
It outlines a four-prong approach that will inspect all 8,500 service lines. The board will test each customer’s water. It will also confirm the material each line contains.
That will involve records reviews and visual inspections, which can require digging into the roads and people’s yards to get to the pipes. All confirmed lead lines will be replaced by the utility.
The board will also consider corrosion control measures. This could involve adding phosphate to the central water supply, to prevent lead pipes from leaching.
That could cost $15 million and up to three years to complete. The EPA and state have yet to approve the plan.
Not just Clarksburg
Lead lines are common. It’s estimated that 20,000 customers have lead service lines throughout West Virginia.
In the 1980s, Congress banned the installation of lead pipes. Lines that were already in the ground can still be used, though environmental groups say these lines should be replaced immediately.
“If you have a lead pipe in the ground, you’re only one act of incompetence away from sickening people,” said Erik Olson, senior strategic director of health programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s what happened in Flint [Michigan]. It’s what happened in Newark, New Jersey.”
According to federal standards, utilities have to keep an eye on the water coming out of these pipes through regular sampling, something Clarksburg says it’s been doing.
Olson believes current sampling standards under the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule are inadequate. The rule also gives utilities 15 years to replace bad pipes.
“It allows water utilities to test less frequently and less than we believe is urgently needed,” Olson said.
The greatest risk is to children, who can experience developmental issues, like a delay in acquiring speech or learning issues. High levels can cause seizures.
“We’re not supposed to have lead in our body. It’s really not required in biological systems for anything,” said Jim Becker, who specializes in occupational and environmental medicine at Marshall Health. “It’s a toxin at every level.”
Local news outlets have reported that no child in Clarksburg needs treatment yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t experiencing effects.
Children are considered to have excessive exposure at 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But treatment to extract lead from the body is recommended at nine times that amount.
“The decision to treat is really a decision about the risks versus the benefits of treatment. Treatment of children with elevated lead levels isn’t completely free of hazard,” Becker said.
Infrastructure
The U.S. Senate has passed a bipartisan infrastructure package that would allocate $1.5 billion to replace lead service lines. Democrats hope to pass a budget reconciliation bill with even more funds. Olson is pushing legislators to earmark another $30 billion, which President Joe Biden had originally called for.
“Water utilities are saying ‘Look, we just need some help to pay to pull out these lead pipes,’” said Olson. “There is a once-in-a-generation opportunity right now,”
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.
Federal regulators have joined West Virginia officials in reviewing water service lines in Clarksburg for elevated levels of lead in drinking water.
Sampling in several homes in the area showed lead levels above a health safety limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“The situation in Clarksburg is concerning, and as a precaution we encourage all families living in homes built before 1950 to use bottled water for consumption and have children younger than six years of age evaluated for lead,” said Dr. Ayne Amjad, state health officer and commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Public Health. “Working together with our federal partner, the Environmental Protection Agency, we will assure safe drinking water for the residents of Clarksburg. Additionally, the state is committing funding toward lab analysis of water samples for lead content.”
The issue of lead service lines was first identified by staff in the Bureau for Public Health’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program during environmental lead assessments conducted in the homes of children diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels. Water samples in several homes serviced by the Clarksburg Water System were above the EPA’s action level (15 parts per billion).
The Clarksburg Water System will implement a corrective action plan that will include additional sampling, increased frequency of monitoring, installation of a corrosion control system and an alternate source of drinking water and/or point of use filters for homeowners where elevated lead levels are known from existing sample results and where known or suspected lead service lines exist.
“EPA is committed to address lead in the nation’s drinking water to ensure communities like Clarksburg are protected,” said acting EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Diana Esher. “Addressing lead in drinking water requires partnerships, and EPA is dedicated to working with West Virginia to improve public health.”
Parents of children younger than six years of age who are living in older homes serviced by the Clarksburg Water System should discuss the risks of lead exposure with their child’s pediatrician to determine if precautionary blood lead testing is needed. Additional steps all consumers can take include flushing water lines used for drinking and cooking and using bottled water for making baby formula. Experts caution that boiling water does not remove lead from water.
Questions regarding the Clarksburg Water System and the risk for lead exposure in the water should be directed to Bob Davis, Clarksburg Water System Chief Water Operator, at 304-624-5467, extension 121.
Representatives from 37 citizen groups fighting for “water justice” met Tuesday at the Capitol to release a letter of solidarity with Flint, Michigan.
The letter, dated February 9th, parallels the 2014 West Virginia Water Crisis with the water crisis currently unfolding in Flint.
“Two years ago, we stood in those same lines, visited local emergency rooms, and demonstrated in the halls of power because our water, too had been poisoned,” it says. Crystal Good, a West Virginian who had been affected by the 2014 West Virginia Water Crisis read the letter at Tuesday’s press conference.
The letter and subsequent speeches from group leaders also called for government accountability and the protection of safe drinking water in West Virginia.
“Working together across race and class in the aftermath of this disaster, we are making real change. We don’t have all the answers, but we are gaining ground for safe, reliable water here in West Virginia, as you are in Flint, Michigan,” concluded the letter.
Other speakers called for The Public Service Commission to continue their investigation of what went wrong in West Virginia in 2014 and for congressional members to pass, instead of block, proposed federal water protections.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.
