Today I attended Rural Health Day at the Capitol to advocate for water quality in the southern coalfields (including District 32’s Boone County). According to data from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Information System, 3 counties in WV ranked highest in percentile ranking for water violations.
1. Wyoming, WV
2. Boone, WV
3. Mercer, WV
A bill was introduced recently that is supposed to help address these issues. Below is my statement from the press conference today where I explain why this bill doesn’t begin to address either the scale or the emergency of the issue the southern 13 coalfield counties face. The bill originally sponsored by Delegates Green and Hamilton set to earmark $250 million dollars, which is much closer to a solution than the bill currently under consideration.
My name is Jennifer Bias Bryant, a candidate for the WV House of Delegates. I’m a southern West Virginian both by birth and by choice. I grew up in Logan county and now live in Boone county with my family. If I seem familiar, it’s probably because I’ve never been able to be quiet when I care about something.
Rural health is something near and dear to my heart. My husband and I made the decision to come back HOME where he serves our Boone county communities as a primary care doctor.
As we gather here on Rural Health Day, it’s important to acknowledge that NO amount of investment in local healthcare can save our people from the impacts of contaminated water.
In southern WV, lately — we’ve had too much water with flooding and at the same time, not enough safe drinking/usable water…
So, I was encouraged that a group of legislators in the House of Delegates decided that the Water Crisis in the southern counties warrants their attention. Unfortunately, we differ in what we see as an adequate response.
In this building on Friday, my opponent (the current delegate from the 32nd) — along with Delegates Vance-95, Dean-76, Bridges-71, Ellington-39, Pritt-92, Browning-79, Green-18, Toney-47, Roop-72, and Brooks-90 — introduced HB 5525. This bill seeks to create a fund to aid communities facing a water crisis — with an initial investment of $10 million dollars. That is a LOT of money… until you learn that $10 million wouldn’t even cover the cost faced by the Anawalt community over in McDowell county. That project’s estimated cost of $11 million would leave the fund in the negative before any other communities got the help they so desperately need.
This bill’s “loan and grant program” certainly wouldn’t begin to touch the problem. In fact, it’s investment is $277 million dollars short of the estimated cost to address only the “high priority” projects in just 4 of the 13 southern coalfield counties – per the state’s own DEP. Forcing West Virginians to eventually be able to apply for loans and grants under the ((Drop in the bucket of tainted water bill)) also known as THE SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA CLEAN WATER FUND ACT OF 2026 doesn’t come close to meeting the emergency needs of the moment.
When my oldest daughter joined the WV National Guard, I can only assume that a crisis like THIS is what she thought she’d be helping to address. At MINIMUM, I urge our state government to direct an immediate response of delivering water to affected communities by any means necessary.
This drop in the bucket piece of legislation is being offered instead of a broader bill, (originally authored & sponsored by Delegates Green of McDowell County and Hamilton from Monongalia), which came much closer to offering a solution for our communities. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s on the table. Without water, we (either as people or a state) cannot survive.
For my whole life (& probably beyond), our state government has kicked the can to the next great industry we were told would swoop in & cure our problems. Lately, that’s been tourism, which is admittedly one of our greatest assets. However, we cannot continue to expect our tourism industry to flourish without first addressing our water crisis because tourists need clean water.
This session, Speaker Hanshaw expressed his plan to focus on economic development. This is a worthy topic to tackle, considering our long term population loss. But how do we focus on growing business and industry when they too need clean water? Fortune 500 CEOs tend to seek out areas where usable water is accessible to their facilities and workers.
I couldn’t bring a hammer in today, so I’m going to need you to help me knock this point home with words. In Almost Heaven, we need clean water.
Tourists need clean water.
Businesses & Industry need clean water.
Hospitals need clean water.
Childcare centers need clean water.
Schools need clean water.
Churches need clean water.
Veterans need CLEAN water,
Seniors, mothers, and babies NEED clean water.
West Virginia needs clean water.
