McDowell County Holds Public Hearing on Gary Community Water System

The West Virginia Public Service Commission convened a public and evidentiary hearing in Welch on March 19 to determine whether the Gary Municipal Water Works should be formally classified as a failed or distressed utility, bringing McDowell County officials, community residents, and technical witnesses into the same room to confront a crisis years in the making.

The hearing was held to determine if Gary is a failed or distressed utility. Engineer Michael Crace, who reviewed Gary's water system, testified alongside other technical witnesses before PSC representatives. The proceedings laid bare what regulators and residents have long described as a system in collapse. Problems that need fixing include leaks that currently consume 94% of treated water, rusty tanks, and a need for a secondary water source.

In July 2025, the Commission opened a general investigation under the Distressed and Failing Utilities Improvement Act concerning the Gary Municipal Water Works. Commission staff identified multiple indicators of distress, including aging water treatment infrastructure, inadequate staffing and operator capacity, and significant water loss throughout the system. According to the PSC's Engineering Division, the system's primary water source, the Grapevine well, presents ongoing water quality concerns and may require replacement.

The water's condition has been a daily reality for Gary residents long before regulators opened their case. PSC staff said residents had been under a boil water advisory "for some time now" and that Gary lacks the personnel needed to do maintenance and upkeep on customers' homes and their water works. The West Virginia Bureau of Public Health reported very high levels of iron, manganese, and alkaline metals present in the water, along with other, unidentified contamination sources. Residents at the March 19 hearing made clear that patience has run out. "We need help from the federal government and the state and it should have been done yesterday, not today," Steve Brock said. "We've been here four years and I haven't seen any change." April Muncy described the water as looking "like coal dirt, like coffee."

Gary elected to present no testimony, but says a deal has been reached with the McDowell County Public Service District to operate the system while Gary retains ownership. A March 13 filing with the PSC says the arrangement would transfer day-to-day operations, maintenance, billing, and repairs to the PSD while customers remain city customers paying city rates. The agreement also includes job offers for three current city water employees and outlines a long-term plan to transfer ownership of the system to the PSD after upgrades are completed.

That plan still faces substantial hurdles. Attorneys representing the PSC raised concerns during Thursday's meeting, and even raised the possibility of filing a moratorium on the proposal, over rate increases for customers and a lack of communication from county leaders. The City Council would still need to approve the agreement through an ordinance process requiring an 80% vote under state law. The motion says the City planned to proceed at its next scheduled meeting on April 7, 2026.

The Gary water system currently serves about 400 customers not just in Gary, but also Elbert, Filbert, Thorpe, and Wilcoe. Even if the plan to hand system operations over to the PSD does receive approval, improvements are expected to take years and require millions of dollars. For the hundreds of households dependent on that system, the April 7 City Council meeting now becomes the next critical deadline in a years-long fight for clean water.