Rand families continue to challenge county over sewer failures and home damage

County Attorney Marc Slotnick said he didn’t notice debris or a sewer smell in the area, even after rain. The stormwater drainage issues are affecting 40 to 50 houses in the area, he said.

A state Division of Highways project that will replace both wastewater and stormwater systems in most of the area should alleviate the problem, according to county commissioners, the Malden PSD and the DOH.

However, residents are not convinced. They’ve been dealing with this issue since the system was installed in the 1970s. They say they’ve seen human waste in their basements after heavy rains.

Past action

At the County Commission meeting Thursday, Kevin Ford, a Rand resident, told the commission that these issues have been persistent for him and his family for decades.

Ford recounted that his father, Minard Ford, sued the Malden PSD multiple times spanning back to the 1980s.

“We sued [the] Public Service [District] for years until the Public Service Commission told us we couldn't sue them anymore,� Ford said.

Both Ford's childhood home and his current home in Rand have been damaged by flooding. Ford told commissioners that his childhood home had to be demolished because of the amount of water damage.

Home visit

On Wednesday, four county officials went to Bryan Smith's residence in Rand to access the property for damages and sewage backup claims.

Bryan and his parents, John and Barbara Smith, began attending County Commission meetings regarding their sewer backups in June.

For 54 years the Smith family has lived at their residence along Elaine Drive in Rand. Since the 1970s, they have experienced repeated flooding and chronic sewer backups in the basement of their home.

During the visit with the county officials, Bryan Smith said that because of the water he has had extensive structural damage to his home, including shifting of the foundation, black mold, and damage to a wheelchair elevator that has been replaced twice.

The PSD's stance

Bob Brown, chair of the Malden PSD board, acknowledged Thursday that the system has had issues since it was constructed in 1979 with terracotta pipes.

“They were obsolete the day the plant started operating,� Brown said.

Brown said Malden PSD at the time also found design flaws in the system. The PSD sued the engineering firm and won. The firm immediately filed bankruptcy.

“Malden was left with somewhat of a structurally flawed system,� Brown said.

Brown said that although Malden has invested in improving their system, they still have a stormwater drainage issue. While the DOH works on the stormwater system, they have agreed to also replace Malden PSD wastewater lines they uncover. Brown anticipates most of the sewer lines will be uncovered and replaced in this project.

Brown admitted that he “randomly� finds where residents have their sewer lines pumping into the stormwater system as a holdover from before Malden PSD’s sewer system was put in.

He said the majority of service complaints he gets deals with blockages on the customer side of the sewer line. However, the PSD still tries to help those customers unclog their lines.

In response to a 2023 Public Service Commission complaint from the Smiths, Malden PSD tried to fix a backflow prevention device at the Smiths' house. However, the problem has continued because the entire system needs to be fixed, Bryan Smith told the Gazette-Mail previously.

Brown said the Smiths had not called him to complain since then.

'Sick and tired'

In the meeting, Ford explained to County Commission President Ben Salango that residents had largely stopped complaining since the 1980s because there was never any resolution to the sewer problems, just settlement money that wasn't enough to fix the problem.

“We just always cleaned it up,� he said.

Ford said the County Commission in the 1980s wouldn’t talk to his father.

“What makes you think that just because [there’s] a new commission or somebody else, something's going to change? You're talking about 30 years of this going on,� Ford said. “So that's why am I going to keep raising my hand if I'm never going to be picked in [the classroom]?�

Additionally, as Black residents, the Smiths said they feel like their complaints will be ignored.

"We’ve found — especially Black people — they don’t file a bunch of complaints because once they try, they just get shot down,� Bryan Smith said. “They don’t call the police either, because then the police come and take them away, even though they’re the ones who called. That’s been our West Virginia experience.�

Salango said he thinks the DOH project will alleviate nearly all the sewage problems in Rand. However, he said he is concerned about the sewage backups and the structural damage that has destroyed property values for residents.

“I can’t promise you it’s going to help you at all,� Salango said. “They say that it will.�

Bryan Smith plans to complain to the PSC until the problem gets fixed.

"They’re going to get sick and tired of being sick and tired of us because…, if I see one piece of toilet paper, one kernel of corn floating in that water, they’ll be hearing from me," he said.