CHARLESTON, WV (WOAY) – On Thursday, Aug. 5, another intervention was filed at the PSC regarding the Fayette County Commission’s attempt to sell county PSDs to American water.
This intervention was neither related to the county’s ability to sell assets it does not own nor unaccounted for debt.
It was filed by WVA Manufacturing, commonly known in the area as Alloy. They are a current customer of Kanawha Falls PSD, and they intervened in regards to their water rates, which WVA Manufacturing expects to see increase by 200 percent over three years. They are currently receiving a bulk treatment rate from the district.
It is expected that after the initial rate phase in, all customers of the PSDs will see higher water rates. WVA Manufacturing employs hundreds in Fayette county with millions of dollars in combined annual pay roll.
“As a direct result of the resolution of this proceeding, WVAM is exposed to adverse and significant rate increases,” their filing reads.
The filing was a Petition to Intervene Out-of-Time as the Public Service Commission’s deadline was February 25, 2026.
WVA Manufacturing claims they were unaware of the proceedings until the PSC’s own legal staff contacted them as a courtesy on July 31, 2026.
In their petition the company assert that they and their special industrial rates are specifically mentioned in the joint application and “neither KFPSD nor WVAWC provided direct notice to WVAM of the intent to eliminate WVAM’s wholesale tariff rate and to move WVAM to WVAWC’s full tariff rates after consummation of the transaction contemplated by the Joint Application.”
It is worth mentioning that Kanawha Falls PSD, until recently, was opposed to the sale and had no involvement drafting the asset purchase agreement which was negotiated by the Fayette County Commission and West Virginia American Water.
The Public Service Commission has not yet granted this intervention. If they do not, WVA Manufacturing states they plan to file a special intervention as well as a formal complaint.
In other news regarding the sale, on Wednesday August 7th, the Fayette County Commission approved the amended and revised purchase agreement which adds the PSD’s as signatories to the sale as they were not in the first asset purchase agreement.
The county once again reiterated that all debts would be covered from the 13-million-dollar sale proceeds.
“All valid and provable debts, that are identified or not, are to be paid,” Attorney Michael Taylor said.
On March 16, 2026, WV American Water’s Brooks Crislip provided testimony to the Public Service Commission regarding the numerous interventions and claims of all the debts of the PSDs not being accounted for in the purchase agreement.
When asked if the 13 million would be sufficient to allow the Fayette County Commission to repay all bonds and grants in full, if those funding agencies do not waive or reduce the repayment amount, he answered, “No… in practical terms if substantial waivers or reductions are not negotiated with the USDA-RUS, IJDC, WVDED, and other grant agencies, then the applicants will be unable to close the transaction.”
The Fayette County Commission and American Water have maintained that the county commission will seek forgiveness or reductions for the public grants that are owed.
The West Virginia DEP and the WV Water Development Authortiy have already filed interventions on this contested sale, claiming their grants to Kanawha Falls PSD, some of which are out of revolving public funds, are not accounted for in the purchase agreement.
