Her dad managed water service in Glover, an old coal town along the Guyandotte River in Wyoming County.
Bailey now works as a family doctor in two southern West Virginia counties.
She’s in the early stages of a research project to examine if water concerns drive people to buy sugary drinks that can lead to health problems.
+4 Apart from her work at Tug River Health Association, Dr. Joanna Bailey is involved in a crusade to get decent drinking water for her family and neighbors, and if successful, those efforts could lend credence to concerns that water can make people sick.
Bailey and her husband, David, and their neighbor, Sherman Taylor, sued their city water provider, Pineville Municipal Water, in June.
People who drink water with such levels “over many years” may have “an increased risk of getting cancer,” according to the letter.
The practice was outlawed years ago, but many straight pipes still exist in communities not connected to central sewage systems.
In McConnell and Stollings, two unincorporated areas along the Guyandotte near the city of Logan, a series of straight pipes pump sewage into the river.
Stanley said the pipe system leading to the river backs up regularly, leaving her neighborhood reeking of sewage from the murky water that pools along the road and railroad tracks.
Walt Ivey, director of the West Virginia Office of Environmental Health Services, said raw sewage pooling in neighborhoods like this is a concern to the state Bureau of Public Health — especially after a Hepatitis A outbreak that infected more than 1,700 individuals in the state since March.