The PSC opened proceedings on Nov. 3 into complaints about Paden City’s water and sewer systems. The preliminary investigation revealed that for years residents have dealt with contaminated water from a chemical called Tetrachloroethylene or PCE that is commonly used in dry cleaning.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) of West Virginia will hold public comment and evidentiary hearings Jan. 11, 2024, to determine whether the City of Paden City and Paden City Municipal Water Works is a distressed or failing utility.
The evidentiary hearing begins at 10 a.m. at the Paden City Municipal Building, 208 W. Main, Paden City. A public comment hearing will be held that same day at the same location beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The PSC opened proceedings on Nov. 3 into complaints about Paden City’s water and sewer systems. The preliminary investigation revealed that for years residents have dealt with contaminated water from a chemical called Tetrachloroethylene or PCE that is commonly used in dry cleaning. The United States Environmental Protection Agency added the Paden City Groundwater site to the Superfund National Priorities List, a list of hazardous waste sites eligible for remedial cleanup funding, in 2021. The EPA considers PCE as likely to be carcinogenic to humans.
According to PSC documents, two of the utility’s three air strippers – used to remove PCE from water – failed in 2018 and 2019. Although one of the strippers was repaired, levels as high as 21 parts per billion (ppb) of PCE have been recorded, above the federal maximum of 5 ppb.
The PSC filings detail a more recent incident in 2023, when a bypass valve for the air stripper failed, allowing a large percentage of water to bypass the air stripper unit and enter the finished water system.
The city filed a response on Nov. 20 that it is not a distressed utility and is not in “continual violation” of statutory or regulatory standards. It also said it took proper steps to remove PCE from its distribution system. This includes applying for emergency funding through USDA Rural Development as well as an application with the Emergency and Imminent Community Water Assistance Grants Program after excessive PCE levels were detected in 2018.
Both systems serve customers in Wetzel and Tyler counties. The City of Paden City is a municipal utility that provides service to 1,262 sewer customers; and Paden City Municipal Water Works provides water service to 1,204 customers.
Paden City has a history of water plant problems with PCE contamination.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Bureau for Public Health has lifted the “do not consume” notice for customers of Paden City Water Works. The notice was issued on August 16, based on three consecutive samples that showed negative detectable levels of tetrachloroethylene (also known as PCE) in the local water supply.
DHHR said in a release that even if PCE levels are below the maximum contaminant level, local customers will receive additional instructions from Paden City Water Works to flush their lines prior to using or consuming the water to remove residual PCE. Those with specific health concerns are advised to consult with a primary care physician or use an alternate source of drinking water.
Paden City Water Works will continue to flush as needed while also collecting weekly samples until the Bureau for Public Health is confident that levels of PCE remain below the MCL.
The elevated PCE was a result of a June mechanical by-pass valve failure which has been corrected. Paden City Mayor Steve Kastigar noted in releases that a June storm prompted a transformer failure at the water plant. He said the air stripper went down because of the transformer failure. As a result, Paden City was running out of water without any ability to fight fires, so the bypass valve was opened, causing the chemical leak.
An administrative order from the Bureau for Public Health was issued to Paden City on August 19 to clarify actions necessary to address the public health issues related to PCE. The order was amended to include additional items to ensure that the treatment was functioning effectively on August 26.
“DHHR’s Bureau for Public Health was pleased to support Paden City and its residents through this issue in coordination with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the West Virginia Division of Emergency Management, and county and city officials,” said Interim DHHR Secretary Dr. Sherri Young. “The health of residents in Paden City has been a priority for the entire Justice Administration, and we are pleased that the do not consume notice could be lifted.”
Several rounds of sampling were conducted by Paden City and EPA. DHHR coordinated the delivery of testing supplies to Paden City on August 24, for additional water sampling. State resources were also made available to help provide alternative sources of drinking water and support distribution needs.
Community members from Paden City, West Virginia, heard from federal and state officials Thursday about an ongoing investigation into the city’s contaminated water supply.
The small community, located along the Ohio River in Tyler and Wetzel counties, has faced years of contaminated water from a chemical commonly used in dry cleaning called Tetrachloroethylene or PCE.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers PCE to be “likely cariogenic”. Studies have linked exposure to an increased risk of cancer, reproductive and developmental effects and neurological impacts.
During a virtual public information meeting Thursday evening, EPA officials confirmed PCE has been present in the city-run water system for at least a decade at varying levels — sometimes above federal drinking water standards.
PCE was first detected in Paden City in 2010. The city installed three air strippers to filter out the chemical. In 2018, one of the strippers failed and the city began recording levels of PCE above the federal maximum contaminant level for PCE at 5 parts per billion.
Then in the fall of 2019 another air stripper failed. It was repaired in 2020, however officials recorded a PCE level of 21 ppb in November 2019. Earlier this year, city officials alerted residents of the high levels of PCE in their drinking water, prompting some residents to organize bottled water handouts and begin conducting a local health survey of residents.
In May, a new treatment plant was installed. Meredith Vance, acting director of the environmental engineering division for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, said sampling conducted since the plant was installed has shown no detectable levels of PCE in the water. Monthly testing will continue for the next year, and under federal law, quarterly sampling will continue indefinitely.
While water leaving the city’s treatment facility may be clean, EPA’s investigation so far has identified widespread PCE contamination stemming from Bandbox Dry Cleaners, which closed in 1975.
The agency has been conducting its assessment since 2018 at the behest of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which asked for help identifying the source of contamination in the city’s four public wells.
EPA began taking water and soil samples in January 2020. Connor O’Loughlin, EPA site assessment manager, said it appears there is a 63-acre area of contaminated groundwater that connects the dry cleaner to the four wells used by the city for drinking water.
A second phase of the investigation is set to begin this summer. EPA will further look at two other dry cleaners — Budd’s Dry Cleaners and the Rockwell Dry Cleaners — as possible sources of contamination and whether the chemical is traveling up from the soil into people’s homes in vapor form.
Data being collected by EPA will also be used to determine if the site should be listed on the Superfund National Priorities List.
Health Concerns
The bulk of the questions posed to officials during the information session centered around whether the PCE contamination in Paden City has harmed residents’ health.
The door-to-door health survey conducted by a group of concerned citizens has unearthed self-reported clusters of cancer, ALS, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, as well as neurological symptoms.
Lora Werner, regional director for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a federal public health agency, said based on the data that the agency had, it appears unlikely that the levels of PCE in the city’s water were high enough to have harmed residents.
“Based on your situation, what we know about those levels, these do not seem high enough to have actually caused health effects for community members. So that’s that’s the good news,” she said. “Again, we have to caution that there’s a lot we don’t know, but from what we do know that’s what we conclude.”
That did not sit well with some attendees. Werner referenced one comment submitted in the virtual session that noted it was “painful” to hear her say that it was unlikely the contamination was linked to health problems given the level of illness among the community.
She noted while health studies like the one the community has conducted can be helpful, the data collected is not rigorous enough to be used by epidemiologists to pinpoint whether exposure to a chemical caused illness.
“I do really want to strongly point out that there is a lot that we don’t know about what causes people illnesses,” Werner said. “I don’t want to give a sense of certainty that we don’t have, but we do our best with the information we do have and we extrapolate from those occupational and animal studies and to try to make conclusions when we can.”
In an effort to address water issues plaguing rural West Virginia, the state Public Service Commission is supporting a bill that would give the group more statutory authority to assist and order the acquisition of failing water and wastewater utilities throughout the state.
House Bill 4953 addresses a “tsunami” of issues that Amy Swann with the West Virginia Rural Water Association says local utilities have been facing for years. Those issues include aging infrastructure, a shrinking consumer base and a lack of federal grant opportunities, which all make funding repairs and maintenance difficult.
“Many of our [water] systems on the municipal side of things are more than 100 years old,” Swann said. She estimated many privately owned systems are more than 40 or 60 years old.
“They’re reaching the end of their useful lives, in terms of the infrastructure in the ground,” Swann added of the water and wastewater systems.
Public Service Commission Chairwoman Charlotte Lane said Monday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that many small water systems cannot provide good water and their infrastructure is failing. Delegates in that committee passed the bill on to the House Finance Committee Monday with a favorable recommendation.
Lane also attended a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Tuesday evening, during which senators agreed to pass Senate Bill 739, which consists of the same language as the House version, on to the full Senate for consideration, with a favorable recommendation.
According to self-reported numbers the PSC published in 2018, there were 269 publicly owned water utilities, 18 privately owned water utilities and 29 water authorities and associations in West Virginia.
Regarding wastewater systems, the same report said there were 265 publicly owned sewer utilities for wastewater and 36 privately owned utilities in 2018.
The state Bureau for Public Health and the state Department of Environmental Protection are responsible for tracking which utilities are violating state and federal regulations.
Several state-issued boiled water advisories remain in effect daily in areas where a local utility is out of compliance. A study last fall found 378 of roughly 448 active utilities between 2016 and 2019 had at one point violated the federal Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. The organizations that conducted the study reported more than 912,000 West Virginians at one point in those three years drank unsafe water.
When a utility is struggling in an area or a utility is unable to provide clean water, the commission’s options are limited. Currently, if the Public Service Commission has received several complaints from an area with a failing utility, Chairwoman Lane said the commission will address a local circuit court about ordering another utility to take over.
“The problem is, a lot of other utilities don’t want to take on a failing system,” she said. “This [bill] would allow us to make another utility take on that failing system.”
Bill Details
House Bill 4953 and the Senate version of the bill would allow the Public Service Commission to create a list every year of distressed and failing utilities.
The bill defines a distressed utility as one that continually violates state regulations, hasn’t complied within a reasonable timeline to a notice of that violation and is unable to fulfill its financial obligations.
A failing utility, according to the bill, is a distressed utility that the public service commission has decided to replace with another more capable utility.
Once a utility is deemed either failing or distressed, the bills require the Public Service Commission to hold a public hearing to discuss possible improvements, or the possibility of an acquisition.
Following that hearing, the commission will either provide assistance or identify and appoint a capable utility to take over. Both the failed and the newly appointed utility will then discuss what price the new utility will pay to take over the failed utility’s service area.
Costs and Opportunities
The bill mentions a few “cost recovery mechanisms” to help the utilities that take over a failed utility’s area, to make up for what they spend on acquiring the systems, improving and maintaining them.
A nonprofit organization could be eligible for a grant from a Distressed Utility Account created by the bill, which will hold $5 million from an infrastructure fund currently under the Water Development Authority’s jurisdiction.
A for-profit organization could qualify for below-market loans from the state.
In the long run, Lane said she believes the bill will benefit the utilities who engage in a take over, as improved water and wastewater systems will attract more consumers.
“Eventually, the more customers that utilities have, the better they are,” Lane said. “It means that they have more revenue, and the more revenue that they have, then the more money that can put back into their systems to provide better service.”
According to Swann, director of the West Virginia Rural Water Association, the bill would allow the Public Service Commission to take a more active role in assisting or improving water systems that only continue to age as time continues to pass and no improvements are made.
“They feel like they’ve been abandoned,” Swann said of consumers in rural areas with inadequate access to clean water and reliable wastewater systems. “That’s never been true, but I can see how they would have that perception.”
House Bill 4953 was referred to the House Finance Committee for consideration before it reaches the full House for a vote. Senate Bill 739 will proceed to the full Senate for consideration.
Lane said Tuesday the Public Service Commission also is following Senate Bill 551 that the House Government and Organization Committee referred to the House Finance Committee. This bill would allow for incentives to small, publicly owned municipal utilities looking to merge with or hand their systems over to a larger utility. National utility organization American Water has publicly supported this legislation.
Many residents in the small West Virginia town of Paden City are grappling with the news that the city’s water is contaminated with a chemical commonly used in dry cleaning called Tetrachloroethylene or PCE.
Late last month, the city-run water authority sent a notice to residents warning PCE was present in the water at nearly three times the federal limit. The notice stated the water was safe to drink in the short term, but could lead to long term health problems including an increased risk of cancer.
City officials are working on a fix, but some residents are asking both how long they’ve been exposed to the chemical and if that exposure may have impacted their health.
On a recent Sunday afternoon idling cars snake down West Main Street. Residents are waiting to receive donated bottled water, including Whitney Fiber. She said she is worried what drinking contaminated water may mean for her daughter’s health.
“My daughter’s two years old and every sippy cup, every bottle she had — because she was a formula baby — we made with that water,” she said. “Now, what happens if she gets sick from exposure to this? We should have been told. Everyone should have been told. It’s wrong.”
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
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WVPB
Volunteers hand out donated water.
Fiber is not alone in her concerns. At a public meeting earlier that afternoon, more than three dozen residents packed the Paden City Council chambers, a small room in the same building as the volunteer fire department. At times, the mood turned contentious.
The city has shut down wells in the past due to PCE contamination. Paden City Mayor Clyde Hockstrasser said the water authority has been playing “whack a mole” battling rising PCE readings across the city’s four wells. Additionally, the city’s current filtration system is running at reduced capacity due to broken parts.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers PCE to be “likely cariogenic”. Studies have linked exposure to an increased risk of cancer, reproductive and developmental effects and neurological impacts. The agency set the maximum contaminant level for PCE at 5 parts per billion. Last year, the city told residents that in 2018 the levels were at 5.5 parts per billion.
The latest testing showed the quarterly average level of PCE was 13.6 parts per billion.
Hockstrasser said it now appears the contamination is getting worse. Recent testing by the EPA confirmed PCE levels are eight times over the limit near one closed drycleaner.
“We found out our aquifer was polluted from the EPA drilling and that our major concentration was at what they call the Band Box Cleaners,” he said.
The dry cleaning company operated in Paden City for decades and closed nearly 20 years ago.
New Filtration System
Hockstrasser said the city intends to break ground next week on a four-month project to install a state-of-the-art water filtration system. It’s being funded by a $570,000 emergency grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the system should strip almost all the PCE out of the city’s water. However, long term, the Hockstrasser said Paden City may need to find a new water supply.
“All four of our wells are pulling out the same aquifer. So, maybe we can get further north further south to try to get out of that aquifer and get a clean well,” he said. “But our first line of defense is getting the strippers in. That was our quickest way to eradicate this.”
While the fix is promising, some residents worry about long term exposure.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
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WVPB
Paden City residents’ water is contaminated with chemical PCE.
“What I have always been concerned about are my kids,”said resident Tonya Schuler, who led the public meeting and is one of a group of concerned citizens who raised the alarm about the PCE contamination. “I have a son with epilepsy. I have a son that has neurological tremors.”
On Facebook and in person, Schuler began asking if others in Paden City, a community of about 3,000 residents, which straddles Tyler and Wetzel Counties in northwestern West Virginia, if they had health problems.
During a recent door-to-door informal survey, she said the instances of sickness were staggering.
“We found clusters of cancer, ALS, MS, fibromyalgia,” she said.
Now, Schuler and others intend to survey every resident of Paden City about their health and if and how they use the water. She hopes the data will help equip the community with more information, and could spur state or federal health agencies into doing a more thorough investigation in Paden City.
A spokesperson for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the parent agency of the Bureau for Public Health, said in an email that the agency’s current role in Paden City is to enforce federal drinking water regulations.
“The Bureau for Public Health enforces the federal regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act and notifies the public water system that they have exceeded the EPA’s MCL,” it stated.
A spokesperson for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection said the agency has limited involvement and the EPA is leading the investigation and remediation.
Making Aware
Boston University Epidemiologist Ann Aschengrau has studied the long term impacts of PCE exposure in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where the chemical was used to line water pipes.
Determining exposure and connecting it to disease is a complicated task, she said, especially with PCE. Humans can be exposed not just through drinking water, but by breathing it and absorbing it through the skin.
“The problem is that it takes really a lot of work and ends up being money to really do a good investigation,” she said.
Credit Brittany Patterson / WVPB
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WVPB
Long lines of cars waited to get donated water on Feb. 9, 2020 in Paden City, W.Va.
For her part, Schuler said she isn’t backing down.
“I’m no scientist, I’m no chemist. I’m just a concerned citizen,” she said. “I just wanted everybody to be aware because that’s the problem I think everybody’s upset about is we were not made aware.”
Until then, she intends to keep handing out donated bottled water.
West Virginia State Police have arrested Paden City Police Chief Joseph Richardson on charges of domestic battery and driving under the influence.
Media outlets report Richardson was arrested Monday. He was booked into the Northern Regional Jail in Moundsville and later released.
Paden City Mayor John Hopkins says Richardson has been suspended pending an investigation. Hopkins declined to disclose details of the case. He says the City Council plans to hold a special meeting on Thursday.
Richardson took over as police chief after Michael D. Kelly resigned for health reasons in July.
It wasn’t immediately known whether Richardson has an attorney. A telephone listing for Richardson couldn’t be found.
