Clean drinking water and responsible disposal of wastewater are two primary characteristics of a safe community. West Virginia has 596 separate water and sewer utility systems, and, according to the state Public Service Commission, “Over time, some have fallen into disrepair and struggle to provide customers with safe, adequate and affordable service.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers 2021 Infrastructure Report Card gave the state a “D” grade on water. “Some drinking water systems are losing more than half their treated water throughout the distribution system,” the report states.

The state also got a “D” on wastewater. “Many of West Virginia’s wastewater utilities have worked diligently to operate and maintain their systems, but only a quarter of these utilities employ asset management to extend the infrastructure’s life,” according to the report.

Combine those maintenance needs with necessary water and sewer expansion projects and you have an endless amount of work that needs to be done in West Virginia. By some estimates it would cost over $10 billion to do all the work, or more than twice the general revenue budget of the state.

However, the state and local governments and public service districts are continually trying to catch up on the demand, according to Marie Prezioso, executive director of the West Virginia Water Development Authority. “The last couple of years, we have made a concentrated effort to work with all the funding agencies, both state and federal, to use all the funding available to best fund a project.”

The state is getting a huge tranche of money from the federal government as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, announced earlier this month $62 million in funding for drinking water infrastructure upgrades in West Virginia.

“When crafting this law [in the EPW committee], we made it a priority to provide long-term funding with maximum state flexibility that would help ensure communities across West Virginia and the rest of the country had safe, clean drinking water,” Capito said.

That will help, but the work is expensive. Prezioso said her agency last month approved six critically needed water line extension projects, but it will cost over $7 million just to reach 99 homes. That will be a huge help to those families that don’t have water service now, but it also shows how much it costs just to extend lines.

Every area of the state has needs. “Every county will have unserved areas and needed improvements to their systems,” she said, and it is not uncommon for a utility to simply collapse. The Public Service Commission has designated these systems as “distressed or failing.”

In those instances, struggling water and sewer systems have a process where they can be acquired by another utility. Most of these are small utilities, but if you are a customer and you receive notice that your utility is abandoning you, it’s a big deal.

Prezioso said her agency receives 20 to 30 requests a month for funding to improve or expand water and sewer services, and not all the needs can be met; they must prioritize.

“It may not be technically feasible to provide service to all potential customers for a long time,” she said.