Aleigha Sloan can't remember ever drinking a glass of water from the tap at her home.
That is "absolutely dangerous," the 17-year-old says, wrinkling her nose and making a face at the thought.
"You just don't touch that tap water unless absolutely necessary. I mean, like showers and things — you have to do what you have to do. But other than that, no," she says. "I don't know anybody that does."
Sloan sits on the couch in her family's cozy two-story house, tucked back along winding rural roads in Huntleyville, Ky., near the West Virginia border. Her mother, BarbiAnn Maynard, 41, is in the kitchen, emptying out a plastic 5-gallon jug that she uses to fetch cooking water from a local spring.
"You take it for granted until you don't have it," Maynard says about a clean water supply. "I think that's the attitude of a lot people right now, but I don't think they understand how close they are to it happening to them."
Americans across the country, from Maynard's home in rural Appalachia to
urban areas like Flint, Mich.
On top of that, about
50 percent of water utilities — serving about 12 percent of the population
Drinking water is delivered nationally via 1 million miles of pipes, many of which were laid in the early to mid-20th century,
according to the American Society of Civil Engineers
A 2017 report by the group gave America's water systems
a near-failing grade
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates it will
cost the country nearly $400 billion
The nearly 12,000 residents in Martin County have to deal with tap water that sometimes comes out brown or milky or smells bad. Other times the water is shut off and nothing comes out of the taps at all. At the
Martin County Water Warriors
All of this is why Maynard's family doesn't drink the tap water. She says they spend about $30 a week on bottles of drinking water. That's on top of their monthly water bill — about $65 — for water used only for cleaning and flushing the toilets.
Some county residents say they bathe their babies in bottled water to avoid exposing them to the tap water; others store jugs of water near the bathroom in case the tap runs dry in the middle of a shower.
"It's anything other than normal," Maynard sighs. "But it's our normal."
The decades-long problems in Martin County illustrate just how complex the issues are. Leaks in the pipes that carry water throughout the county result in substantial losses of treated water —
nearly 65 percent in 2016
That's especially worrisome given
the region's history of mining and industrial activities
And even after officials announced that the water was safe, the trauma from that spill created mistrust that runs deep to this day.
That concern is warranted, says Gail Brion, a University of Kentucky professor of civil engineering specializing in water infrastructure.
"The treatment plant operators can't control the quality of the water in the pipes if they cannot keep the pipes intact," Brion says. "This is really not on the water quality coming out of the plant. It is on what happens to the water as it goes through this leaky straw."
The Martin County Water District, the private utility that manages the county's water, reported 29 line breaks in 2017 and
advised residents to boil their water
The utility spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in September to rent a pump in hopes of fixing the problem,
but it wasn't enough
Reporting by the local paper
Its recommendations have ranged from basic maintenance improvements to better money management to improved water testing — and
were mostly not implemented
In 2016, the Public Service Commission opened another investigation, which is ongoing. Galvanized by the 2000 coal sludge spill, retired public school teacher Nina McCoy, 61, is one of the most vocal water activists in Martin County. She goes to nearly every meeting related to water issues in the county, sometimes spending all day driving to and from Frankfort, the state capital, to attend hearings.
This time around, Mary Cromer, a lawyer from the
Appalachian Citizens' Law Center
The region's century-long reliance on the coal industry is one issue, Cromer says, but not the only one.
"This isn't just confined to Martin County. This isn't just confined to Appalachia. We have dilapidated infrastructure all over this country," she says. "And so if you're going to have rural areas that are going to survive, much less thrive, you've got to pay attention to these critical infrastructure needs."
Change is happening in Martin County, albeit slowly. The state attorney general announced in June that his office would be
opening an independent investigation into the water utility
But the fixes all require money, and the utility is more than $1 million in debt — and it will need millions of dollars to upgrade the system. That's money Martin County simply doesn't have.
Jimmy Kerr, the board's new treasurer, took on the position because he wants to make the county better for his two daughters, but he says it is a daunting task.
"If we don't get our finances in order, we will never be able to give the people of Martin County the water that they want," Kerr says.
The Martin County Water District recently
received nearly $5 million in federal grant money
"I know who I'm hurting. But there's no one coming in on a white horse to save us," Kerr says. "The people of this county did not create this mess, but we're the ones who are going to have to fix it."
That's one thing that many in Martin County seem to agree on — that the residents are going to have to dig in and keep working to fix the water problems here.
Maynard is doing just that, by, among other things, running for local government. She says she is committed to staying in Martin County, where her roots go back six generations.
At the family cemetery, tucked behind a coal mine, there are dozens of graves, adorned with brightly colored flowers and ribbons. She walks carefully between the headstones, pointing out her grandparents and her cousins.
She stops at a tall headstone, piled high with flowers.
"Back here is my mommy, and hers is the prettiest, most fancy one here," she says.
Maynard points down the sloping hill to a corner under a tree. "And I wanna be down there by that rock. Daddy will be right there. My kids will be right there."
She looks around.
"There's no price tag you can put on that," she says.
Maureen Pao edited the Web story. Jolie Myers edited the audio story.
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