City of Evarts continues to face struggles with water plant

EVARTS, Ky. (WYMT) - For nearly two years, the city of Evarts has been dealing with several issues with the water plant.

The water plant has had to cut back on the amount of water to be used throughout the city due to shortages in its mines and wells.

“The current situation is our mine supply has deplenished to just about nothing, it’s just putting out about 50 gallons a minute and we have seen our raw water wells, the levels in those fall as well and we’re having to compensate that,” said Chief Water Plant Operator Woodrow Fields.

He said due to the decrease, they have had to insert water pumps into the river.

“We’ve had to compensate someway. So, instead of taking weeks to get parts in and many more thousands of dollars to drill a new well and that may be a hit or a miss, we have installed some pumps in the river to help with the supply to meet the demand,” he explained.

Avery Ewing lives in Evarts and he said he is concerned because these issues have impacted the community.

“You don’t even know if you’re gonna come home to water, you don’t ever know when the water’s gonna be on or when it’s gonna be off,” he said.

He said they had gone without water for days at a time, with no notice. Ewing said he wants more clarity as to what is going on as well as when changes are expected to be made.

Fields said there isn’t much they can do without proper funding.

He said they have been denied for the funding they need.

“The numbers that we’re looking at is five to seven million dollars and there’s not a loan program out there that’s wanting to just give you that amount of money,” he explained. “But, there’s different avenues that we’re trying just anyway that we can because it has reached a point to where it’s not the funds that the city could provide, we’re gonna have to find some outside source funding and we’re gonna have to probably have that come from more than one source.”

Fields said they will continue doing what they can to get through this, however he said funding is needed in order to do so.

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