WORTHINGTON, W.Va. — The former mayor of the Worthington has filed to actions that could dissolve the town and trigger state action regarding its troubled sewer system.
Former mayor Debbie Heflin has asked the Marion County Commission to dissolve the town. The second action would would ask the Public Service Commission to consider state intervention into the town’s sanitary sewer system.
Heflin said Worthington registered eight legal votes in its 2025 municipal election. The state law requirement is at least 20 votes or the municipal charter would be forfeited and the state auditor would become a special receiver to review finances.
“People have called me a thief and accused me of corruption,” Heflin said. “Come look at the books. Then look at what it costs to fix a sewer system and tell me where a town this size was supposed to find it. The Auditor is going to find what I found, which is that the fix was bigger than the town.”
The state DEP placed Worthington under a consent order after documented violations of its wastewater permit. That resulted in the town completing seven versions of the corrective action plan between August 2025 and May 2026, but compliance problems persisted. A DEP inspector reviewing six months of records found 10 effluent-limit exceedances in the only month when samples had been taken. The latest plan completed by the town says the city does have the financial means to bring the system into compliance.
The Worthington sanitary sewer system serves the Greater Marion Public Service District and part of the Greater Harrison Public Service District. State law requires systems serving 25 or more people must be governed by the Public Service Commission, and only the PSC can make the decision to abandon the service.
During scheduled council meetings in May and June Heflin attempted to bring the sanitary sewer system before the Public Service Commission, but those meetings were either cancelled or lacked a quorum to take a vote. Heflin filed the petition as a customer of the utility after she resigned as mayor in July.
“I think this is the first time anyone has done both of these at the same time,” Heflin said. “The Auditor would take control of a town that still owns this sewer system while the Public Service Commission decides what happens to it. One part of the state answering to another part of the state. Somebody is finally going to have to say out loud what this costs and who pays for it.”
Some estimates put the cost of replacing the Worthington sanitary sewer system at $20 to $30 million. The distressed-utility process created in 2020 is tied to the Distressed Utilities Account which by law can only have a balance of $5 million.
“The state needs billions, but the distressed utility fund tops out at $5 million,” Heflin said. “Clean water is nonpartisan. We need to start acting like it and funding the fix, whatever it takes.”