This piece is intended to accompany “Water In Appalachia Needs a Trillion Dollar Solution” by Jan Pytalski, the first of a two-part series on water infrastructure in Appalachia, and possible solutions to problems at the federal and local level.
Here are some contamination issues of several zip codes across Appalachia we selected from the Environmental Working Group’s database. We chose to list results for both small and major water utilities.
Although our selection focused exclusively on Appalachian counties, the general pattern that emerged for the Appalachian states as a whole showed that in the case of nine of them (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) the utility companies with the highest number of violations were the ones serving the smallest communities, while for the remaining fours states (Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama) the same was true, but instead for medium sized communities.
- Bluefield area (WV)
- Lewisburg area (WV)
- Kanawha Falls area (WV)
- Coal Mountain area (WV)
- White Cottage area (OH)
- Hamden area (OH)
- Martin area (KY)
- Pikeville area (KY)
- Campton area (KY)
- Marsteller area (PA)
- Fredericktown (PA)
- Central City area (PA)
- Tupelo area (MS)
- Chattanooga area (TN) – serves 52 people
- Oneida area (TN) – serves over 11,000 people
- Mt Airy (NC) – serves little over 100 people
- Jonesville (NC)
- Wedowee (AL)
- Tuskegee (AL)
- Carnesville (GA) – curious case of utility buying its water from other systems