WEIRTON, W.Va. — In late April, hundreds of frustrated Weirton residents packed a room full to tell the Public Service Commission of West Virginia about their issues with the Weirton Water Board.
Between 300 and 400 residents were without water during the winter months due to main breaks. The winter catastrophe prompted House Majority Leader Patrick McGeehan to file a complaint with the PSC and ask them to launch an investigation into the board because of the city-wide outages for prolonged periods of time.
Last week, the PSC ordered the Weirton Water Board to submit an action plan within 90 days to fix the county’s problems. The PSC also ordered the board to replace the county’s aging water pipes and cast iron within the next five years.
“We have taken this very seriously because the ability of people to have good, potable water is paramount,” PSC Chairwoman Charlotte Lane said on MetroNews Midday. “We want to work with the Weirton Water Board to make sure that they are providing the service that their citizens deserve.”
The PSC’s investigation showed that 40 percent of the city’s water lines are above the frost line. That is against state requirements.
“We’re requiring them to come up with a plan on how they plan to fix that,” Lane said in response to a question regarding the finding.
Lane says aging pipes are not exactly a needle in a haystack in the Mountain State, but a system like Weirton’s that serves around 9,000 customers needs to be up to date.
“West Virginia has an extremely large number of water and sewer utilities, and a lot of them have aging infrastructure, so what we found in Weirton is not really unusual. What was unusual about Weirton was it was a larger system,” Lane said.
Lane says the statewide problem of aging water infrastructure has to be addressed
“What we have seen in other parts of West Virginia are smaller systems that have these issues, and it’s something that the Public Service Commission and the governor are working to come up with some solutions to try to address these water issues that West Virginians face every day.
As for the Weirton Water Board, they have also been ordered by the PSC to create a repair and leak detection program and lower water loss to 15 percent or less.