Pictured is the West Virginia House of Delegates Energy and Public Works Committee during a Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, meeting. The Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee is a panel within the committee.
Pictured is the West Virginia House of Delegates Energy and Public Works Committee during a Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, meeting. The Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee is a panel within the committee.
Despite West Virginia’s disproportionately high rates of drinking water violations, state lawmakers have prioritized bills in the first days of the 2025 regular legislative session that threaten to weaken water quality.
The Republican-supermajority West Virginia Senate on Friday passed without opposition a bill that would loosen state regulation of devices that protect potable water supplies from contamination.
That passage followed approval from the new House of Delegates Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee of two bills that would erode oversight of private sewer systems, including one that state Public Service Commission and Rural Water Association leaders said would adversely affect public health.
In a 32-0 vote following no debate Friday, the Senate passed Senate Bill 269, which would prohibit the state Department of Health from requiring certain backflow prevention assemblies from being inspected more frequently than once in three years.
Backflow prevention assemblies are added to pipes to ensure water flows only in one direction and keep water and wastewater from intermingling. Plumbing experts say backflow preventers should be inspected and tested annually.
SB 269, which now goes before the House, would require annual inspections for “high-hazard†backflow prevention assemblies. The bill defined “high-hazard†as “conducive to the introduction of waterborne disease organisms, or harmful chemical, physical, or radioactive substances into a public water system†that present an “unreasonable risk to health.â€
But SB 269 still would bar the Department of Health from requiring a public water supply system or business from having backflow preventers inspected more often than once in three years for systems that have a hazard that may have a “detrimental secondary effect†on public potable water supply quality or cause aesthetic problems.
Senate Government Organization Committee counsel Carl Fletcher indicated during a brief discussion before that committee advanced SB 269 that the cost and frequency of inspections had concerned the bill’s sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Patrick Martin, R-Lewis, who is not on the Government Organization panel.
New panel advances public sewer system-targeting bills
The House Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee on Wednesday advanced two bills that would increase the risk of water pollution from private sewer systems: House Bill 2181, whose sole sponsor is Assistant Majority Whip Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, and HB 2079, led in sponsorship by Delegate Larry Kump, R-Berkeley.
HB 2181 would prohibit counties and municipalities from:
Requiring a private landowner with a private sanitary sewer system to connect to a county or municipal sanitary sewer system
Charging landowners a fee for the county or municipal sanitary sewer system
Making landowners responsible for costs or improvements to a county or municipal sanitary sewer system
After presenting HB 2181 to the Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee, Pinson admitted to the panel the bill doesn’t account for whether the landowner’s sewer system is functional.
Pinson also acknowledged that by choosing to “opt out†of connecting to the county or municipal system under HB 2181, landowners could prevent sewer lines from being installed since they would be reducing the number of paying customers the line would serve.
But Pinson argued it was too burdensome for landowners to install a septic system at a cost of some $10,000 to $12,000 and then be required to connect to a public system and pay a minimum monthly bill of roughly $60 per month.
Pinson predicted his legislation would force new public sewer projects to consider “in a much more detailed fashion†who will use their projects.
‘A huge step backwards’
The Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee advanced HB 2181 after PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane and West Virginia Rural Water Association executive director Todd Grinstead said it would adversely impact public health.
“The reason that we have public sewer systems all across the state is to benefit the public health,†Lane told the Delegate Daniel Linville, R-Cabell-chaired subcommittee.
Lane suggested HB 2181 would result in more daunting customer base calculations for potential projects.
“If you start taking away some of the customers, then those projects might not be feasible … or the remaining customers will have to pay more,†Lane said.
Grinstead then echoed Lane, also highlighting public health and project affordability concerns.
“Poor waste treatment definitely affects your drinking water,†Grinstead told the subcommittee. “There’s a direct correlation there. So doing away with a requirement to be on a sanitary sewer system would be a huge step backwards.â€
The Grinstead-led West Virginia Rural Water Association provides technical assistance to rural water and wastewater utilities.
Momentum for barring mandatory sewer system hookups
The Environment, Infrastructure and Technology Subcommittee-advanced HB 2079 would prohibit mandatory hookups and installation fees for new or expanding sewer systems.
HB 2079 would erase state law allowing any public service district with sewer facilities to require all owners or tenants of any dwellings near sewer facilities to connect with and use them while not using any other means for collection, treatment and disposal of sewage and waste.
Subcommittee Vice Chair Rick Hillenbrand, R-Hampshire, presented HB 2079 to the subcommittee on lead sponsor Kump’s behalf as one of the bill’s three cosponsors. The other two are Assistant Majority Whip Bill Ridenour, R-Jefferson, and Delegate Chuck Horst, R-Berkeley.
Hillenbrand told the subcommittee Kump wanted him to relay that an older Berkeley County couple on a fixed income lost the home they had mortgaged to pay for a hookup to a new sewer system after they couldn’t make their mortgage payments.
“I’ve got a number of constituents on that line that are also on fixed incomes, and their concern is that the cost is not insignificant,†Hillenbrand said.
Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, noted neither HB 2079 nor HB 2181 distinguish between failing and new, “well-run†septic systems.
“I would hope that if this bill does move to the next stage, that consideration is given to amendments that address those concerns,†Hansen said before the subcommittee advanced HB 2079.
Distressed utilities list had over 17,000 water customers
Lane told the subcommittee the PSC is contemplating legislation that would require additional training for public service district board members that helps them manage their systems effectively.
West Virginia public service districts and other water and wastewater utilities are struggling as their infrastructure ages and customer bases dwindle, often resulting in line breaks and other equipment failures that interrupt water access and compromise water quality.
The PSC’s list of “potentially unstable†water and wastewater utilities consisted of 23 public service districts, municipalities and other providers across 14 West Virginia counties as of Oct. 23. The utility providers served 17,074 water and 9,912 wastewater customers, according to the PSC.
Senate Bill 739 allows the PSC to declare a water or wastewater utility “distressed†or “failing†and order the acquisition of a utility deemed failing by a “capable proximate†water or wastewater utility.
SB 739 defines a distressed utility as a continual violator of Bureau for Public Health, state Department of Environmental Protection or PSC standards, that can no longer provide adequate services or fails to timely pay financial obligations.
The PSC last month ordered its staff to investigate one of the utilities on the list, the Mingo County Public Service District. PSC staff had reported discovering district customers experience regular water service outages, inadequate water pressure and discolored and unpotable water.
Officials also have considered selling Lincoln County, Logan County and Buffalo Creek public service district assets to West Virginia American Water, which has acquired local public service districts with increasing frequency in recent years as they struggle to provide reliable water access and quality.
Discolored water and no water at all have been common problems throughout West Virginia’s economically challenged southern coalfields, where advocates have called on West Virginia lawmakers to forge new avenues for clean water funding for their communities.
Drinking water violation problem
West Virginia’s percentage of public water systems with health-based violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in 2022 was 22.7%, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data, far exceeding the 4.5% national average. West Virginia’s clip of public water systems in this category had been just 4.7% in 2015.
The percentage of public water systems in West Virginia identified as priority systems — systems on a list indicating unresolved serious or continuing violations for at least a quarter of the year — was 42.2% in 2022, dwarfing the national average of 3.2%.
Acute health-based violations, which have the potential to produce immediate illness, have been far more prevalent among West Virginia public water systems than the rest of the country on average.
West Virginia’s percentage of public water systems with those violations was 2.7% in 2022, exceeding the national 0.8% clip and the state’s own 1.2% clip in 2015. West Virginia public water systems also struggle to meet public notice requirements.
So far, though, West Virginia legislators are moving bills that risk moving the clean water needle the wrong way.
“Yes, there are some onsite [sewer] systems that work, and they do work very well for a period of time. They won’t last forever,†Grinstead said. “You’re going to have problems. You’re going to have spillage. You’re going to have stuff of that nature. So a public system is a way to go to get it into a proper treatment.â€
