AP News, June 14th, 2007
Several times a day, Roger Thacker hauls 5-gallon buckets of water about 50 yards uphill to his mobile home so his family can bathe and do laundry.
It's a grueling daily chore that keeps local families like Thacker's trapped in a 19th century time warp, years after the rest of the country stopped considering running water a modern convenience.
About 85 households along an 8-mile stretch called Ridgeline Road have electricity and phone lines but lack running water. The wells many once relied on for clean water are no longer usable, local residents say, because they have dried up or been contaminated by nearby coal mining.
In recent weeks, water officials began seeking a study and, ultimately, financial assistance to run water lines to the area, but it's a lengthy process that could cost nearly triple what it would to run lines elsewhere.
Most families' ties to the area run deep, and simply picking up and moving elsewhere isn't an option, said the Rev. John Rausch, who has lobbied for help as director of the Catholic Committee of Appalachia.
"In Appalachia there is a tie to the land," he said. "Many of these people have lived on this land for many generation. They were brought up there _ it's their way of understanding themselves."
Most homes are secluded within deep wooded hollows or atop steep hills. From the road, water tanks may be the only signs of habitation.
The area's water troubles are considered extremely rare.
The U.S. Census Bureau still asks about "complete plumbing" _ which includes hot and cold piped water, a flush toilet and a bathtub or shower _ but dropped a survey question after 1990 asking households about their source of water.
"You've got people who shouldn't be carrying water in 2007," said John Doug Hays, deputy judge-executive of Pike County.
Like most families along Ridgeline Road, Hays blames coal mining for the area's water woes, saying intense underground blasting in the 1990s caused their wells to crack, allowing water to seep out or contaminants to seep in.
Over the past two years, the state Department of Natural Resources has reviewed 100 complaints involving wells. About 20 percent of those cases were related to active mining operations, said Mark York, spokesman for the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet, which oversees natural resources.
"We'll obviously be to blame in certain cases," said Bill Caylor, head of the Kentucky Coal Association. "You don't go out to deliberately cause someone to lose their well _ it's an inadvertent byproduct of the mine service."
The state is looking into whether coal mining is the direct cause of the Ridgeline water problems. If so, the division of Abandoned Mine Lands can offer assistance for water lines.
Meanwhile, the county pays volunteer fire departments $10,000 a year to haul water to homes in remote areas that don't have running water. Mountain Water District provides the water for free, Hays said.
Residents appreciate the services, but say the water is not potable. And sometimes, they say, it takes weeks for a water delivery.
"They're supposed to bring water when we ask for it," said Bud Thacker, the 66-year-old patriarch of his clan. "We're lucky if we get it once a week."
To run a water line to 85 affected homes in the area would cost about $800,000 of Pike County's $35 million annual fiscal budget, Hays said.
"Government is not a limitless well of money," he said. "You try to get the biggest bang for the big buck."
Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration has approved $49 million in grants for water and sewer line development in eastern Kentucky counties since he took office. Pike County, the largest geographically in the state, has claimed $10 million _ the largest chunk. But running lines to the Ridgeline homes has been put off for years because it was cheaper to run them elsewhere first, said Will Brown, manager of the county's Mountain Water District.
