More Good Water — Less Bad Water

Water and sewer services in Jefferson County were juggled around in 2023 when Jefferson Utilities, a privately owned company, sold out to a publicly traded company, West Virginia American Water (WVAV). The sale resulted in some 1,500 former Jefferson Utilities customers in the county receiving utility bill increases of 50% and more.

WV American Water at the time of the acquisition already had a history in the state, serving some 580,000 people, the great majority in the Charleston and Huntington areas. The new clients in Jefferson County fell under the rate tariffs already approved earlier by the WV Public Service Commission (PSC). Jefferson County customers will also be paying off bonds Jefferson Utilities had outstanding at the time of the sale.

So what are we here in Jefferson County likely to expect from WV America Water being a player in our backyards. Besides the rate increases, users should expect — because they have been promised as much — WVAV customers will have infrastructure upgrades that will increase the reliability of their water supplies and their sewage disposal. When those upgrades happen, they will decrease the likelihood of system interruptions and failures of the sort that can make water and sewage service unsafe for customers and hazardous to the environment. These are the kinds of problems residents in the the southern coalfields already experience.

In Jefferson County, one of the wealthiest counties in the state and one of the few still growing, the WVAW investment is on a sounder footing. Their customers will be paying more, but they should be able to afford it. So the thinking goes. But also consider that the PSC has just this year approved million dollar rate increases for WVAW, which are estimated to increase billings for minimum usage customers by $6.00 a month in 2026 and another $7.00 in 2027.

But that brings up a matter close to home.

Here in Jefferson County we have communities facing imminent water and sewer failure similar to what our southern coal field counties already are experiencing. Take Bakerton, situated between the prosperous and clean water towns of Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry/Bolivar, as an example.

The unincorporated town of Bakerton was populated largely by miners of the Washington Building Lime Company. It was a company town that grew in step with the success of the mining company and in the early 1900’s permanent homes were built to house the miners and their families. Stores and churches and a school also sprang up to serve the growing population.

These homes and buildings were closely spaced and their water needs were served by cisterns resupplied by trucked in water. Sewage was handled through outhouses. Owners of some of the larger structures eventually drilled wells for their water supply and gradually laid in septic systems.

After the mine closed operations in the 1950’s, the economic engine of the town was lost and the community went into decline. But sometime during this decline, homeowners still managing with cisterns got together and drilled a community well and laid piping to deliver water. Most homes also by this time had septic systems. This is the situation still today for most of the original miners’ homes in town. But that infrastructure is failing and with our recent history of drought, some homeowners have decided to drill wells. The high cost of drilling, though, is beyond the means of many residents and these folks continue to live with the uncertainly of reliable water.

Recall too that these homes are closely spaced and they’re situated on karst geology, meaning that septic failures will leach down into the ground water, the same ground water that’s now serving newly drilled wells. We have, in other words, a trickle down problem where home owners may at some point be drawing contaminated water from their taps.

Bakerton has never been served by Jefferson Utilities or by the Charles Town Utility Board, the major water and sewer utility in the county, and it’s unlikely to be an attractive pickup for WVAW. Yet searching online for “Where does Bakerton get its water?” the AI bot provides the answer in the image below.

While the community well may in fact be fed from the Elk Run watershed where Harpers Ferry draws its water, it is decidedly not the case that Harpers Ferry processes and distributes that water to Bakerton four miles away from its facility. There’s no pipe to carry it.

So what to do? It’s a problem that needs to be brought before the County Commission to find a solution — hopefully before any harm is done to residents or to the environment. Since so many other locations in the state face the same problems as Bakerton, our state delegates and senators need to be proactive and push for solutions that will eliminate the threats. Soon!

Jim Bauman