An eastern Kentucky county that’s struggled with water issues for years is among recent grantees of Governor Beshear’s Cleaner Water Program.
The Martin County Sanitation district received more than $685,000 to make repairs to wastewater treatment plants in Inez and Tug Valley in far eastern Kentucky.
Craig Miller is Division Manager for Alliance Water Resources, which oversees water facilities in Martin County. Miller explained that these plants are part of the ongoing problem.
“When you go into a utility that has a struggling water system, if they have a sewer system, it's very likely that the sewer system is in as bad if not worse shape than the water system. And that’s one of the things that we’ve found here as far as the plant goes at the wastewater treatment plant in Inez, it was just in really bad shape,” said Miller.
The Tug Valley plant has less severe issues. However, Miller said they should still be addressed so they don’t become bigger problems.
The eastern Kentucky county has struggled for years with its water loss rate, customer access, and best practices for repairing leaks.
Miller said, early on, crews were finding leaks that were actually old repairs that had failed.
“So now what we’re seeing in year three is that we’re not actually fixing old repairs as much, right? We’re going out and we’re fixing new leaks or leaks that we’re finding now as opposed to old leaks that didn’t hold,” said Miller.
The county is still regularly reporting around a 70 percent water loss rate. Miller said they are optimistic that they are getting closer to identifying and fixing the leaks.
The water official said the sanitation district hopes funding from the Abandoned Mine Lands program will come through in the next month or so to help the county make more repairs and upgrades.
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