WYOMING COUNTY, W.Va. (WOAY) – “They’re living with water that they’re not sure if it’s healthy or not… you don’t know if it’s safe to drink or even bathe in… when you’re living that every day, it’s a miserable thing,” said Jason Mullins, president of the Wyoming County Commission.
For years, residents across parts of southern West Virginia have reported brown, foul-smelling water flowing from their taps, harmful bacterial growths in their filters and creeks, and more recently, residents report combustible gas venting from the ground and unexplained explosions. At least seven southern West Virginia communities, including Indian Creek, Wolf Pen, New Richmond, Caples, Fort Branch, Brenton, and Baileysville, have reported signs of contamination.
The county is unable to help because the water is involved in a Wyoming County Circuit Court case involving three coal companies, including one owned by the family of Senator Jim Justice. Despite complaints dating back more than five years, state intervention has remained minimal, with residents saying the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) has yet to take meaningful action.
Evidence suggests the contamination could also be in direct violation of the Clean Water Act, as well as protections for endangered species in the affected rivers, and may breach additional federal and state environmental laws.
The topic remains in litigation, and many residents now rely solely on bottled water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Where coal companies once provided water, those provisions have disappeared, leaving residents to bear the cost of buying, transporting, and distributing clean water on their own.
WHAT IT FEELS LIKE ON THE GROUND
Combustible Gas
Residents say they are dealing with more than just harmful water. In several communities, wells and vent pipes are releasing combustible gas, which many believe is linked to nearby mining.
In Brenton, a home exploded at the beginning of this year under still-unconfirmed circumstances. Residents nearby said the blast was strong enough to shake buildings miles away.
“I’m not sure what caused the explosion…it leveled the house completely…I was sitting in my study and it shook the church,” said Irvin Lee, a Brenton resident, retired coal miner, and now pastor.
At the beginning of March, members of the Baileysville Hunting Club reported an unregulated pipe on the property that was venting combustible gas.
I visited the site with members of the hunting club and brought a combustible gas detector. As air burst out of the pipe, the sound of the combustible gas meter echoed through the forest.
When the detector was placed near the pipe, it triggered immediately. Combustible gas was escaping at a steady, audible rate.
With homes exploding and gas actively venting from the ground without regulation or warning signs, residents say they live in a state of quiet fear. Pastor Lee says he cannot get through a service without thinking about the possibility that he doesn’t get to choose when it ends.
“It brings fear to me for the people that come to the church here. We have about 35 members when everybody shows up. We’re kind of tiptoeing through the service, I’m kind of holding my breath at times, you know, is this thing going to go off sometime?” Lee said.
Situations of combustible gas being where it shouldn’t be are not isolated. Lee also mentioned that his neighbors’ well exploded within the last 6 months.
“He told me about it, I think it was back in November or September that he was working on his well, and his well just up and blew up,” Lee recalled.
While in Brenton, I encountered two officers from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). They confirmed they had located the gas release and were working on it, but declined to provide an official comment. At the time of this writing, residents have confirmed that the gas is still coming out, and churchgoers still hope each Sunday mass ends with an amen, not an explosion.
Indian Creek sits just a few miles from Brenton and Baileysville, and residents report similar gas issues as well as unexplained explosions. Dakota Day’s well exploded late last year, leaving his arm burned. Just a few days later, his neighbor’s well also exploded.
“I took a leather coat and put it over the liner to put it out. My neighbor got blown up about 4 or 5 days later,” Day said, a resident along Indian Creek
Residents say they are afraid that a single lightning strike or something as routine as a backyard campfire could have catastrophic consequences.
“If any spark at all goes off, it’s probably going to take the town of Brenton off the map,” Lee said.
Another resident along Miles Branch, Ricky Lane, echoed that by saying, “There’s been a couple people blown up with methane in their well, Arlene Blankenship, I think Chris’s well blew the door off his pump house, I was lucky I found a mine in time, so I had a guy come and check. It had methane in it.”
With property values being driven down by toxic, foul-smelling water, the growing elderly population has no nearby opportunities, and residents are left with no choice but to stay and hope someone listens. After years of formal complaints, obtained through FOIA requests dating back to 2020, residents are exhausted and growing sick.
“My house went from $56,000 to $42,000 in a year. No way you can sell it. There’s no way you can sell it with that water the way it is,” Lane said.
While methane is not classified as a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act (CAA), it is still regulated under the act, and as of 2024, the EPA has adopted stricter guidelines.
Toxic Drinking Water
Imagine turning on your kitchen sink or getting a bath ready for your kids and the water that comes out is murky brown, jet black, or laced with tiny bits of coal. Imagine stepping out of the shower smelling like rotten eggs, and your hair is left feeling like a wire brush.
That is the reality for countless Americans in southern West Virginia.
In Wyoming County, residents say their tap isn’t just discolored and foul-smelling, it’s filled with dangerous contamination.
In one case, the Wyoming County Health Department has confirmed the danger.
Lee had his well tested in 2020 before drilling a new one. The Wyoming County Health Department advised him to stop using the water entirely, but no alternative water supply was provided. Four years later, many families still rely on bottled water, and some continue to use contaminated well water out of necessity.
“I mean, what other options do you have to bathe to shower to do those things? We don’t have any other options, really, except to use the water from our well…So we we had to shut that well down and we had a new one dug, it went down 130 feet further than the other well was,” Lee said
“You can’t drink it, you can’t cook with it. We can’t do anything with that water that we got now…The smell and odor in your house? You just can’t hardly even turn it on, and you have to shower with it because that’s all you got. You get out dirtier than when you got in, it’s just that bad,” Greg Adkins, an affected resident said
Pastor Lee says the water at his home and church began to change in 2020, and it’s only gotten worse since.
“Our well water started to turn brown, and it just kept getting worse and worse until it almost looked like sand, like a mixture of sand and clay,” Lee said.
In 2020, Lee checked the pump on his well and found white, stringy material clogging the filters that supplied water to both his home and church. The white substance was identified, in an email to me, by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection as sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), a type of bacteria commonly associated with mine-impacted water systems, according to a study done by the USGS.
Lee’s well draws from the same aquifer as Baileysville Elementary School, meaning anyone connected to that groundwater source, including children at the school, are exposed to the same contamination.
After drilling a second well, Lee initially had clear water, but within a year, the old problems returned. When Lee went to investigate, he pulled his filter out, and it was again covered with SRB.
“The pump got sediment in it, the white chalky looking sediment, when I would try to use my pressure washer, I would try to unscrew the water hose off of it but it was glued tight from that stuff, it was terrible. It burnt the pump up, so we had to get a new pump,” Lee said.
After the contamination worsened, Alpha Metallurgical Resources, owner of the nearby Kepler Mine, initially stepped in to provide bottled water.
“It was the Kepler mine, it’s Alpha. I went to the main office. I talked to who I assumed was the superintendent. I told him the issues that we were having with water. So they came down and they tested the water a little, you know, it wasn’t a big test, but they were taking responsibility, it seemed, because they were bringing this water, you know, day after day,” Lee said.
According to Lee, Alpha also discussed a longer-term plan to provide a reliable water supply to the area.
“They told us they would put a tank up on the hill and we would have water constantly, you know, from running out of the mountain. But now we can’t do that because we have an issue halfway up the mountain where there’s a pipe coming out of the ground and water is running out of that pipe, and it’s got discoloration,” Lee said
About 10 miles down the road along Indian Creek, it’s a similar story.
Bobby Keane owns a beautiful stretch of land along Indian Creek, perched above the road with a sweeping view. He’s been raising concerns about the water for years. After contaminants destroyed multiple appliances in his home, Keane says he is out of options.
“Right now, I’ve bought washers, dishwashers, and now my hot water heater’s going out. So it’s ruining everything in the house, it’s done ruin our health,” Keane said.
Cancer rates in the area have risen in recent years, and Keane is among those affected. He has bladder cancer, and both he and his wife are in stage three kidney failure.
Private water testing revealed Keane had been exposed to high levels of arsenic through his drinking water. Concerned, Keane began researching the long-term effects of drinking arsenic. One of the top studies, published in 2014 by the U.S. National Institute of Health, confirms a link between arsenic exposure and bladder cancer. Keane and his wife believe both are connected to long-term exposure to the water.
“I know now what done it, it was that water. Because I’ve been here ever since 1985. So we drank this and didn’t know it had arsenic in it. They should have done something about it,” Keane said
Keane has relied on a multi-stage filter system for years, but it hasn’t been enough. He now spends over $160 a week on filters to keep it flowing, with his only option, the contaminated water.
The filters become iron-stained within just a few days and clog quickly, forcing him to choose between buying materials to make his well flow or lifesaving medicine.
“It’s harder to buy your groceries than anything else…I can’t get my medicines, and if you can’t get your medicine, you got to run back to the hospital where you get sick,” Keane said.
He’s not alone. Theresa West, another Indian Creek resident, has been living with the same contamination for years.
“It’s almost like we as a community have been forgotten by those that are in office that are supposed to serve us. As representatives of us. And I know that word has gotten out to them and they’ve had proof that the water situation is bad down through here. I just don’t understand why they’re dragging their feet,” West said.
Back in Brenton, coal miner Roy New says black water has flowed from his taps for years. He’s filed multiple complaints with WVDEP, which helped prompt an investigation, but no support has followed.
“I turn my faucet on and black water will come out of my faucets to the point where I had to take the screens out to clean where there was nothing but the junk mud and little pieces of coal,” New said. “My next-door neighbor can’t use his well water. His well water is the same as mine.”
The water isn’t just destroying wells and major appliances, residents say it stains nearly everything it touches
“I bought a brand-new bathtub, it’s stained, I mean, it’s red. I went and bought a brand-new sink and a brand-new faucet. And within 48 hours, it’s already got a red stain coming on. And that’s just in the kitchen for the dishes. All of our clothes are stained; our towels, bath towels, dish rags, and even our pots and pans around the handles are red. I just don’t know what to do,” New said.
Across Indian Creek, residents report the same damage in their homes.
“You can’t even wash clothes in it. Your white clothes will be orange by the time you get through, you wash them three times, and they’re still orange. You have to throw them away, and spend all your money on your clothes. Even a pair of blue jeans will turn yellow,” Keane said.
Beyond the daily struggle to bathe and cook, residents say the toll is especially hard on children.
“For my kids, I don’t want them to have to go to school in those clothes. They hear things like ‘You don’t have good clothes’ or ‘You look like a welfare bum.’” New said.
The water’s impact is impossible to ignore.
“My great-grandson goes in to take a bath. he said, ‘That stinks, stinks really bad.’ I said, I know that. But I can’t help it. We can’t do anything about it,” Lee said.
Residents say they have no choice but to bathe in the water, as bottled water alone wouldn’t be enough. Many rely on heavily scented soaps and air fresheners to cover the odor, but even that can’t mask the health effects.
“My wife takes a shower in it and it breaks her [skin] out, her eczema and all of that stuff get worse when you shower, it makes your hair feel like brush, like a wire. If you ain’t got some kind of perfume when you get out of there, you can smell yourself from that water so you have to have body spray to wash off,” Keane said.
While residents find ways to cope, they’re also forced to pay the price.
“I’ve got an $8,000 water softener on my well system. And it’s eating salt like a v10 engine with gasoline. I’ve had to spend $160 to $200 every six months on salt…am I going to get reimbursed for that? Absolutely not. Am I going to get reimbursed for the $8,000 that we shouldn’t have had to pay for in the first place? Probably not,” New said.
After years of spending money, filing complaints, living without a public water system, and seeing little government support, many residents say they don’t know what to do anymore.
For now, the water, the stains, the sickness, and the silence keep running.
The cost isn’t just in dollars. It’s in clothes kids can’t wear to school. It’s in the mornings when the only choice is to shower in water that smells like eggs and burns your skin. It’s in the silence that followed years of cries for help.
In the absence of help, it’s the community carrying the weight, neighbors delivering jugs, families rationing bottles, and volunteers stepping in where no one else will.
The water residents use to cook, bathe, and survive is only one piece of the problem.
What’s happening in the wells is also changing what flows above, into creeks, through the hills, and into the rivers that define coal country.
In Part 2, we follow the streams and the laws meant to protect them.
