Inez resident says a rusted hilltop storage tank could trigger another disaster like the mudslide that destroyed his parents’ home.
BY LISA STAYTON
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — On top of the hill above Okey Mills Jr.’s home on Turkey Creek Mountain, a rusted steel water tank leaks and overflows, sending water down the slope to undermine the ground that he calls home. Mills believes the tank is the cause of years of land slippage. Even more, he fears it could one day trigger a disaster like the mudslide that destroyed his parents’ home there 19 years ago.
The tank owned by the Martin County Water District holds 50,000 gallons of treated water. It shows visible signs of age and decay. Rust lines its seams, flakes peel away from the surface, and corrosion mars both the container and its connected piping. A pipe designed to discharge excess water — cobbled together from plastic and metal — juts from the ground just a few feet away, ending in a makeshift screen secured by a hose clamp.
Mills owns the land surrounding the tank and has documented water collecting at its base over the years. He says overflow often cuts down the hill — “his hill,” as he puts it — saturating the slope and worsening the land slippage already threatening his property.
He and his wife Misty have lived on Turkey Creek for decades and raised their two daughters there. His parents, the late Okey Mills Sr. and Sharlene Mills made their home on the same stretch of land until a mudslide knocked it off its foundation and forced them to relocate.
Mills recalls that before the disaster, the tank’s overflow had come directly toward their home. His father persuaded the water district to reroute it toward Kentucky Route 908, but “the fix was temporary.” The pipe that the water district installed during that intervention remains open at both ends, connecting to nothing.
The destruction of his parents’ home was widely known at the time. However, Mills believes the underlying issue has never been properly addressed. The tank still overflows. Water still seeps into the hillside. The tank, he says, remains a corroded hazard — and one that raises concerns about water quality as well.
“You don’t know how many times I have told them, ‘The tank is pouring the water,’” Mills said.
The slipping on his property, he added, “has never really stopped since it started.” He has paid to stabilize the ground on multiple occasions with no lasting success.
Finally in March 2024, the Kentucky Legislature approved $681,000 for rehabilitation of the Turkey Creek tank. Three months later, in June, Alliance Water Resources manager Todd Adams announced during a board meeting that the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority had authorized the district to proceed with the project.
But by April 2025, Mills says, nothing had changed. A stream of water rushed down the slope behind his home. He called the water district’s number to report it.
“All you get is someone in the billing office,” he said. “After that no one looked at it. There’s supposed to be a thing that automatically turns it off. I guess it doesn’t work.”
According to the Martin County Water District’s April 2025 meeting packet prepared by Alliance Water Resources, “Bell [Engineering] is working through front-end project items with Big Sandy Area Development District … Plans and specifications are being prepared. These should be complete by May 30.”
At the April 22 water board meeting, members authorized chairman Tim Thoma to execute a professional service agreement with Bell Engineering for the Turkey Tank. Thoma noted the agreement “is the same agreement the board previously approved.”
“That agreement is necessary before Big Sandy ADD will complete the processes of all the documentation,” Thoma explained.
For Mills, though, progress means action on the ground.
“It’s been long enough to fix an overflow line,” Mills said. “They haven’t done anything since they put a lock on the lid of the tank [in 2023].”
Part of the $681,000 Turkey tank funding will go toward “security.” Although the location of the tank is publicly available on the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority (KIA) website, the project profile provides no details about “installing security measures.”
Martin County Water District denied the Mountain Citizen’s request for tank maintenance and cleaning records in March 2023, citing a law that exempts infrastructure records if releasing the information would aid a potential terrorist act.
The Turkey tank rehab project on the KIA portal provides an estimated $681,000 budget: Administrative expenses $20,000, planning $59,000, engineering fees-construction $9,000, engineering fees-inspection $32,000, engineering fees-other $36,000, construction $396,000, contingencies $99,000.
The project schedule on the KIA site estimates that construction will start July 1, 2026, and finish July 1, 2027.