The water runs milky and can feel like fire. In this impoverished county, Trump’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan may not help
Across the steep hills and hollows of this remote Appalachian county, many do not trust what flows out of their faucets — if anything flows at all.
Sometimes they get no water. Other times just a trickle. Often, they say, their water is so discolored it resembles milk or Kool-Aid or beer.
"I haven't drunk the water in years," said Jessica Endicott, 35, general manager at Family Dollar in Warfield, a tiny town on Martin County's eastern edge. "I don't cook with it. I don't boil eggs with it. I don't even feel safe bathing in it."
Water outages and boil-water advisories have long plagued this rugged former coal mining region on the eastern tip of Kentucky, where more than half a century ago President Lyndon Johnson launched his war on poverty. Frequently, water bills here come with warnings — notifying residents the water contains high levels of disinfectant byproducts that could, over time, increase their risk of liver and kidney problems and cancer.
A lot of rural Kentucky's water issues are due to one of America's most talked-about problems: crumbling infrastructure. For years the water district here has been losing more than 50% of its treated water to aging, leaky pipes — which can also allow untreated groundwater to seep in.
President Trump has promised "gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways all across our land," and the White House is expected Monday to outline details of its plan to generate at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure improvements. But experts say it is unlikely the federal government will invest in rebuilding the kind of infrastructure that has become a public health hazard in impoverished, out-of-the-way communities like Martin County.
"People see bridges, but water pipes are hidden underground and nobody sees them," said Gail Brion, a professor of environmental engineering and health at the University of Kentucky who specializes in water treatment. "There's no question that people need to have safe, clean water. The issue is, who's going to pay for it?"
In the last month, tension in Martin County ramped up after the water district shut off flow to more than a thousand residents for days because an intake pump and service pipes froze during severely cold weather.
As residents in this sparsely populated pocket of Appalachia struggled — some boiling rainwater to bathe and melting snow to flush toilets — local schools canceled classes for three days and volunteers fanned out to deliver bottled water to the sick and elderly.
County officials declared a state of emergency and sought permission from the state to raise water rates by 49%.
"People here are just enraged they're being asked to pay more for water that they can't drink — for water that's only suitable for flushing commodes," said Gary Ball, a 64-year-old former coal miner and editor of the Mountain Citizen, a weekly newspaper that has doggedly chronicled the water district's water violations, pump failures, and unsanitary conditions over the last two decades. "It's nasty, nasty water."
Local officials have sought to reassure residents the water is drinkable and that discoloration is not necessarily a sign it is unsafe: cloudiness, for example, can occur when air becomes trapped in water, and does not typically affect water safety.
But suspicion of local leaders is rife in this rural county of about 12,000, where nearly 40% of residents live below the poverty line and fewer than a third of those over age 16 are employed.
Those "on the other side of the hill" — a term used to describe those who live east of the county seat of Inez and other far-flung areas — say they bear the brunt of deteriorating water service lines while officials have devoted substantial public funds to flashy new offices and government buildings.
Frustrated, many have taken to the internet, posting photos of Mason jars full of milky liquid and bathtubs of blue-tinted water, and swapping anxious notes on ailments they suspect are caused by contaminated water.
"My hands are splitting open under my nails and my knuckles," Pamela Blevins, 49, a retired nurse who lives in Tomahawk, wrote on the Martin County Water Warriors Facebook site.