WAYNE, W.Va. — Residents of Wayne are cleared to drink water from the town’s municipal water system again. Some however, may not be ready to take that step after three weeks of being told not to drink.
“It’s probably not unusual that they feel a litle skpeitcal, but as far as all the testing went everything came back good,” said Wayne Mayor Danny Grace. “West Virginia Environmental Health gave me the go ahead that everything was all right.”
Grace said the three week water crises in his town has prompted discussions of how to prevent it from happenign again. Oil from a transformer leaked into a creek which feeds the town’s water plant. The investigation into how that happen continues. Appalachian Power says vandals were the cause, but Grace isn’t involved in that part of the issue.
“My concern was what it was and where it got to. How it happened and who did it, I don’t really care. It crated a problem for me and that’s what I’m concentrating on,” he said.
The issue has prompted discussions about how to get better warning that a problem has happened upstream. Grace said there was never any advice to close down the water plant intakes suggested to him. As for an alternative source for the Wayne water system, he said it’s a much bigger conversation. Residents have raised concerns about contamination in the water they were using for an unknown period of time before they were notified of a problem.
“We’re talking about some things, but that’s going to take a lot of engineering,” he said.
The Wayne City Council meeting will open up to the public for questions about the situation Monday night.