The following was originally published as an op-ed in the Charleston (WV) Gazette on Jan. 15, 2025

By Rev. Brad Davis

When the news broke recently that the West Virginia Water Development Authority gave $5 million to an out-of-state private school, I couldn’t help but think of the conversations I’ve had with folks while delivering bottled water door to door with my parishioners in rural, water-impacted McDowell County. Inevitably those affected express how they feel forgotten, how “nobody cares about us down here,” and how those in power have abandoned them.

Indeed, while three of the five communities I serve are dealing with lack of access to clean water, the very body with the power and purse strings to solve the problem is busy throwing millions of dollars toward sports complexes, recreational parks, downtown development and housing projects, conference center upgrades, zoo improvements, etc. It’s easy to see how our people feel forgotten.

When the very body tasked with improving our woefully inadequate water systems awards much of its funding to other areas of the state while thousands of southern West Virginians are forced to rely on bottled water for drinking, washing, cooking, and bathing, it’s easy to understand how the prevailing feeling is that nobody cares about this place or its people.

When we learn the legislature has codified and given legal cover to use WDA funds for projects unrelated to water infrastructure, and that the current governor’s chief of staff received the aforementioned private school’s grant proposal and supported that project while ignoring a petition submitted by McDowell residents pleading for help with their water, one can see how the people here feel abandoned by those in power.

The cruel irony is that the forgotten, uncared for, abandoned people of the southern coalfields built this state on our broken backs, beaten-down bodies, and blackened lungs.

The cruel irony is that the forgotten, uncared for, abandoned people of the southern coalfields built this state on our broken backs, beaten-down bodies, and blackened lungs. But now that it seems we’re no longer deemed useful due to coal’s waning economic impact, we’re discarded and our communities left to rot. Access to clean water for coalfield people isn’t a priority because to those in power coalfield people aren’t a priority.

To them, it seems, our lives don’t matter.

And while it may be true that all but 17 percent of WDA funding has gone toward water-related projects, until the day that every single resident of the great state of West Virginia can trust what comes out of their taps, that’s 17 percent too much. While it may be true that it’s perfectly legal for the WDA to fund other projects that have nothing to do with making water potable, until every Mountaineer has potable water, it doesn’t make it right.

My dad grew up in a coal camp along Pond Creek in Pike County, Ky., just across the state line from my native Mingo County. In those days Saturday night was “bath night,” when the big metal wash tub was filled up and the whole family would take turns bathing. Being the youngest, my dad was the last in line, meaning by the time he got into the tub he was forced to bathe in the mucky, grimy water left behind.

Coal Country has been left behind to deal with mucky, grimy, dirty water for far too long. Funding pet projects while thousands of people deal with a public health crisis isn’t neighborly. Isn’t godly. Isn’t right. Turning a blind eye to the suffering here goes far beyond the scope of malfeasance and betrayal of public trust and extends into the realm of immorality.

As a person of faith, I believe God intends for every human being and all of life to flourish. Such flourishing is impossible without the divine gift that is accessible, clean water. Beyond that clean water is a fundamental human right, and those who have a responsibility to protect that right also have an imperative to do what’s right.

My fervent hope is that those with the power to correct this injustice will do the right thing and finally let justice for our people roll down like clean water, and righteousness like a pristine, ever-flowing mountain spring. That finally the gift of life will be given to a people and region that’s given everything for the life of this state.

Rev. Brad Davis  is a United Methodist pastor in McDowell County and the founder/co-director of From Below: Rising Together for Coalfield Justice.

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Feature image: Volunteers & workers from the town of Gary in McDowell County, WV, unload donated bottled drinking water for distribution to county residents. Photo by Brad Davis