A reservoir that supplies thousands of Eastern Kentuckians with drinking water has fallen to a critically low level over the past month, prompting officials to declare a state of emergency and raising fear among residents that their faucets will run dry.
For more than a week, the district continued to take water out of the reservoir without replenishing it, causing the reservoir to drop to a critically low level.
Now, the district is renting two pumps — one to replenish the reservoir, and the other to transfer water from the reservoir to the treatment plant — at a cost of about $18,000 a month, plunging the cash-strapped district deeper into debt.
While Kerr said officials are not concerned about another water outage, the board passed a resolution last week declaring a state of emergency.
“Without reliable raw water pumps, the District will not be able to supply adequate water to the reservoir and treatment plant, ultimately requiring restrictions of water use and risking significant water outages in Martin County,” the resolution declares.
The district is currently pursuing a rate increase of about 18 percent to cope with mounting debt and a long list of overdue operational repairs, including leaking service lines that cause the district to lose a majority of the water it treats before it reaches customers.
PSC officials have been highly critical of the district for its past and current management practices, which officials say caused the district’s current crisis.
“They need to hire a professional general manager,” Cromer said.
“Now they’ve announced they aren’t going to do that until after the rate increase.” In addition to the rate increase, the district is waiting on two grants that could help alleviate its current crisis.
BarbiAnn Maynard, a district customer and vocal member of the Martin County Concerned Citizens group, described the district’s attempts to correct the ongoing problems as “putting Band-aids on a severed artery.” Some residents have long complained about the district’s water quality, posting pictures and videos online that show dirty water flowing from their taps.