Staff for the West Virginia Public Service Commission recommend a cooperative approach to assuring the residents of Paden City have clean, safe water in the future — although it will require testing for harmful chemicals, improved technology for removing those chemicals and the potential for expensive upgrades.
Staff for the PSC, in a memorandum released today, proposed collaboration among Paden City, neighboring New Martinsville and possibly nearby Sistersville “to provide the manpower, funding and staff” to complete requirements necessary to comply with federal drinking water standards.
“It is clear that both Paden City and New Martinsville have challenges with water supplies that must be addressed,” PSC staff wrote. “The burden of regulation must be properly addressed by obtaining the needed revenue to ensure safe water into the future for both systems and other nearby systems.”
Parties to the case have 10 days to file responses.
The recommendations by staff came about after the full PSC on March 25 ordered further examination of whether the Paden City Municipal Water Works is a distressed or failing utility.
The PSC concluded that filing an additional report would be reasonable to find potential alternative water sources for the city’s primary or back-up water source.
This is a saga that kicked off last August 16 when the state Bureau of Public Health issued a ‘do not consume’ water order for the Paden City system after three consecutive samples showed negative detectable levels of tetrachloroethylene, also known as PCE.
Residents were allowed to start drinking the water again on Sept. 12 after the state lifted the order.
Last October, staff petitioned the Commission to open an investigation into Paden City to assess whether the utility should be designated as distressed or failing . A month later, the city responded by asserting that the utility is not failing.
During a January public hearing, staff noted that the original contamination had been corrected and that contamination levels had subsided to “far below the EPA allowable minimums.”
Most of the comments in the memorandum released today came from the engineering division at the PSC. Staff had been asked to evaluate any available wells or groundwater sources, whether New Martinsville’s water source is sufficient to help if Paden City needs it, and the timeline for remediation of a Paden City groundwater site that had been designated for federal Superfund.
A significant problem, the engineering staff noted, is that the kind of chemicals that have been bedeviling Paden City are relatively common in other water supplies as well. There are developing technologies to remove those chemicals from drinking water to a safe level, but the full cost and effectiveness is still being evaluated, the staff memo noted.
“While New Martinsville has agreed to supply water to Paden City, testing shows its wells also show levels above EPA allowable limits for PFOAs and other listed regulated compounds,” the staff memo stated.
“While testing does not currently show indications of PCE contamination in New Martinsville, the use of either New Martinsville or Sistersville as an alternate source will have to be re-evaluated based not only on the connection costs but the future clean up costs for PFOAs and other regulated chemicals.”