No response from water district

BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

TRACE RIDGE — For the second time in a year, residents of Trace Ridge are without water service. The primitive kiosk-and-token system they rely on for water was vandalized a month ago and left inoperable.

Calls to the Martin County Water District have gotten no response.

Kelly and Tammy Lewis have lived on Trace Ridge at the Martin-Johnson county line since 1994. Their household is one of 12 that get their water from the kiosk. They and their neighbors purchase tokens from the Martin County Water District for about 70 cents apiece (which provides 55 gallons), then haul their water from the kiosk and pour it into underground cisterns that gravity-feed into their homes.

Both Lewises reported the damaged kiosk on separate occasions.

“I called the water district, and my wife called, too,” Kelly Lewis said. “And somebody had already called because they said they were already aware of it.”

Kelly Lewis also reached out to Martin County District 3 Magistrate Derrick Stepp.

“He said he would take care of it, that he would call them,” said Kelly Lewis. “Later, he said they told him that it was already fixed.”

Tammy Lewis called the water district Jan. 24.

“I called and sent them pictures on my phone,” she said. “When I sent the pictures to the lady in the office Jan. 24, I asked if we needed to call the police. She never messaged me back, so I took that as a ‘no,’ and didn’t do anything else.”

The following week, Tammy called the water district again.

“She said, ‘we haven’t gotten a police report yet, and we can’t do anything,’” said Tammy.

Kelly Lewis called the water district again about another week later.

“I called them back because nothing was done, and she told me the same thing,” he said. “Whoever her boss is told her that they had to get a police report. But nothing had been done in that week.”

Lewis placed a rock in front of the door at the kiosk to see if anyone had come and gone.

“No one has been there,” he said.

Tammy Lewis believes if the water district personnel were in the situation that she and her neighbors are in, they would do something about it.

“We have kids out here, and they all need water,” she said. “They all go to school.

“It’s a tragedy that someone would vandalize the kiosk knowing it is where people get their water,” she added.

Tammy Lewis feels it is bad enough that Trace Ridge residents have to get their water from a kiosk instead of a modern system. At the beginning of 2021, the kiosk was out of service for months.

“They want $24,000 to run water out to our houses,” she said. “Who has that kind of money?”

Tammy said living conditions in her neighborhood are sometimes “horrible.”

According to Kelly Lewis, the condition of the road to the kiosk often requires a four-wheel drive during the winter months.

“We finally got Martin County to give up half of the road to Johnson County to take care of,” said Kelly. “From my house, it was about 2-1/2 miles to the blacktop. Johnson County took half of it and graveled it. Then you get to the end where Martin County maintains it, and it’s just crazy. The last time they did anything to our road was when Greta Ward was magistrate.”

Kelly said the county brought a bulldozer to Trace Ridge last summer and parked it at his house.

“That bulldozer sat there for over a month and was only used for a total of two hours the whole time it was out there,” he said. “They didn’t do anything.”

Martin County Sheriff John Kirk confirmed Tuesday that no one had filed a police report regarding the vandalism of the kiosk.

Martin County Water District did not return the newspaper’s call Tuesday for comment.