'Unacceptable': EPA head talks water issues, hope in WVa
WELCH, W.Va. (AP) — Sonny Barton had a lot to say about living without clean drinking water when the nation’s top environmental regulator came to his small West Virginia community Tuesday.
The creek where he collects water for bathing, cooking and flushing toilets is littered with bottles and other trash, and he's long suspected it wasn't safe. Lab testing last month confirmed that, finding the waterway is contaminated with E. coli and other bacteria.
But after 40 years living without running water at home three miles from the nearest main, he said he doesn’t have any choice but to keep using it. Each month Barton spends multiple days hauling it to his home in 600-gallon jugs, and for drinking water he goes to a different stream on the mountain.
“I’m just used to it,” the 64-year-old retired logger said, adding that nine other families in his small community are in a similar situation. “I don’t know any other way to do it now.”
Barton and other residents of southern West Virginia's McDowell County shared their stories of the challenges of living without access to safe drinking water and wastewater with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday. Sitting in their longtime homes, they told of the physical strain of hauling water day after day, health concerns and frustrations at feeling left behind for far too long.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan's visit to the coal county, one of the nation's poorest, was the latest stop on the Journey to Justice tour he launched last year, with winter visits to Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. This past summer, he went to Puerto Rico.
Regan, the first Black man to serve as the EPA's top official, said the tour focuses on starting conversations and rebuilding trust with historically disadvantaged sectors — low-income...