(WYMT/WKYT) – Residents of the Saul community in Perry County gathered at the courthouse Tuesday to demand access to clean, reliable water.
Rosa Couch, a lifelong Saul community resident, said families in the area have long relied on springs and private wells, and that even county-delivered water has been difficult to access.
“We’re protesting to try to get clean, safe water,” Couch said. “The community of Saul has never had clean, safe water. It’s never been run over there.”
Couch said water deliveries, when they do occur, are left at the gate rather than brought to her home, placing a “really bad burden” on her to transport it.
“Then that’s like a long ways from my house,” she said. “And I’m responsible for getting it loaded up off the ground and getting it to my home.”
Couch said her private well was declared contaminated last fall, leaving her without any usable water source since last year.
“My water was deemed adversely affected by Department of Mines and Division of Water and Abandoned Mines,” she said. “So, I’ve not been able to use my water since last September.”
She said residents have raised the issue at fiscal court meetings on multiple occasions and she is pushing for a permanent solution for the sake of her family.
“I have children and grandchildren,” Couch said. “I’m elderly. I’m a senior citizen. I probably won’t be around to fight the battle, you know, keep going. But for my children and grandchildren, I have to do this. I can’t leave them like this.”
Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander said the county has been working on a long-term solution for years, pursuing Abandoned Mine Land funding and coordinating a water line extension with a local water system.
“We’re going to get the water lines extended,” Alexander said. “AML’s approved it. So it’s already approved to do. Then there’s a process you have to go through with the Division of Water, with OEA.”
Alexander said construction could still be more than one year away, pending state agency reviews.
“I think within the next 12 to 18 months that project will be started,” he said. “But we’re at the mercy of the funding agencies that’s approving this. So this is not something that we just started working on last week.”
However, for some residents, that timeline seems too far away.
“I don’t think that we’ve been made a priority at all,” she said. “We’re just overlooked, ignored.”
Alexander said residents can review project paperwork through fiscal court records and that the county will continue delivering water to the community center- and, in some cases, to homes- until a permanent line is extended.
“I heard you years ago and so we started working on this project years ago,” Alexander said. “And so it is going to happen. But sometimes, with government, it takes time. It’s not an overnight fix for just about anything.”
Alexander says anyone who wants to review the project paperwork can do so through fiscal court records.