Residents launch petition to oust Marbury Water board members

Residents in northern Autauga County are pushing to force a Marbury Water membership vote after emergency conservation limits spread from the utility into kitchens, laundry rooms and livestock tanks across Pine Level, Marbury and Deatsville. The petition drive, launched June 5, seeks a special-called membership meeting and the removal of Marbury Water board members.

The effort followed a packed town hall earlier in the week at the Pine Level Community Center, where residents pressed Marbury Water officials on how long the restrictions would last and why the system could not deliver more water. Ken Hollon said few board members were present and said the utility’s general manager has held the job for roughly 25 years, leaving many members frustrated over who is answering for the shortage.

At the center of the dispute is how Marbury Water is governed. The utility says it is a member-owned corporation with a five-person board of directors elected by members, and its bylaws say a special meeting must be called if a petition is signed by at least 10% of members. If supporters reach that threshold, members could gather to consider leadership changes in a system that says it was founded in 1969 and filed in Alabama business records as a domestic nonprofit corporation on Feb. 21, 1969.

Marbury Water’s own emergency conservation notice, effective May 20, limits water use to essentials, including drinking, washing dishes and clothes, cooking, bathing and watering animals. The system’s June 2026 town hall report said the Phase 3 conservation plan followed a temporary reduction in supply after the primary supplier took one of its 2-million-gallon storage tanks offline for rehabilitation work. Marbury Water’s 2026 consumer confidence report said the utility had no monitoring violations in 2025.

Hollon said Marbury Water relies on two sources, one active well and purchased water through the Five Star Water Supply District, which includes the Wetumpka Water and Sewer Board, Tri-Community Water Authority, the City of Millbrook, Holtville Water System and Prattville Water Works. He said the current shortage stems from how much water Marbury can buy through that network and that Marbury does not have a contract forcing Five Star to keep selling. Prattville Water Works says it gets a little over 30% of its water from Five Star, and Wetumpka Water says it has interconnections and purchase agreements tied to the same regional system, underscoring how a supply problem in one place can ripple across central Alabama.