MINGO COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) – An in-depth investigation into the “severely troubled” Mingo County Public Service District revealed many shortcoming and health and safety issues.
WSAZ obtained a copy of that investigation on Monday.
In January, the Public Service Commission of West Virginia called for the investigation into the nearly 4,500-customer system after being “made aware that multiple customers have been without water service for an extended period of time.”
The report revealed the following issues:
- Staff found this facility in very poor condition with lack of redundancy and several safety issues. Staff believes that extensive replacement of major components is needed for the plant to provide reliable, continuous and safe water to its customers while meeting state and federal standards for drinking water. The plant has a design capacity of about 1,380 gallons per minute.
- The technology initially installed to automatically monitor and backwash the filters is either obsolete or no longer working.
- The large air handling and dehumidifier is no longer working. A recent Delpac and Chlorine leak is creating hazardous breathing conditions, pipes transferring finished water to the clearwell are severely corroded (one pipe is leaking).
- The District carries an unpaid chemical bill of about $170,000.
- It takes two full-time employees about 22 days a month to manually and touch read meters in the Justice area.
- Staff also questions whether some of the tanks have adequate turnover rates, particularly the 484,267-gallon Airport Tank installed in 2019 to serve only one customer. This Utility is totally insufficiently staffed.
- The lack of effective management and planning has led to poor condition of the system — lack of responsiveness to timely address replacement and repair of failed equipment
- Water losses were 59 percent for the Naugatuck Plant and 70.06 percent for the town of Justice in a five-year period.
- Staff believes the commission should order the district to submit a corrective action plan, including a plan to correct the deficiency in the number of field employees and to retain a new field supervisor and a plan to replace failed and outdated equipment in the plant and a plan to replace failed and outdated equipment in the distribution system.
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