BECKLEY, WV (WOAY)—Raleigh County Public Service District recently fixed a significant water leak in the Glen White area that was losing 170,000 gallons a minute.
After such an event, it takes a long time to build the tanks’ levels back up; this is nothing new to certain parts of the county.
Raleigh County citizens are concerned. Commissioner Daniel Hall says the system is old. People living in rural areas expect water leaks to happen, but it’s unacceptable when it’s down for more than a few hours.
“The line (installed in the sixties) from the Glen Daniel intersection past Liberty High School down Route 3, the hole goes a long way down that system,” said Hall. “They say a lot of it probably wasn’t installed correctly at the time. Also, the lines only handle 160 psi, which is not enough by today’s standards.”
He says the problems will continue until the line is fixed and replaced. The frigid temperatures only make it worse.
“Ground freezes and thaws, then the soil shifts,” and the line can break, the commissioner said, especially old lines. That’s why correct installation matters.”
According to Hall, the line has already been engineered and designed with a price tag of $4 million. They started the process of applying for those funds to build another plant — a water source on the old Beckley coal site.
“The line replacement was part of a phase one/phase two kind of thing. The line was phase two, but we may have to move it up to phase one,” said the commissioner. “We don’t want to live through the same thing we lived through two years ago; it’s unacceptable. This is 2025 — we should not have to deal without water for weeks at a time.”
Hall gives props to the workers out there in the snow, mud, and freezing temps around the clock finding and fixing these leaks.
“Beckley Water Company sent a crew out to help find it and West Virginia American Water volunteered to send some folks down,” he said. “When the water is out, what’s our priority? Get it back on. It’s got to be the top priority.”
Conserve water to prevent more drain on the system. The commissioner says even if they had $4 million right now it would still take a few years to install a new pipeline. The key is to minimize outages, and communicating with the public goes a long way.
“If it’s going to be off for more than four hours, I think the public needs to be notified every four hours because people stress out and they need to be able to plan,” said Hall.