MAGOFFIN – Water leaks continue to plague the city water system, threatening the water supply as the area braces for another round of extremely cold temperatures and snow in the forecast.
Salyersville Mayor Stanley Howard told the Independent they had fixed four leaks at the water tank on Church St., with four or five more still to be fixed, as of Wednesday.
The water tank had dropped from roughly 59% full on Tuesday at 4 p.m. to 46% on Wednesday at 11 a.m. Since nighttime is usually a lower-usage time period for water, the tank would generally increase in water supply during that time period, indicating a significant leak(s) in the system.
With the repairs made, Howard said the water supply in the tank was increasing, again, though that could not be verified by press time.
Other concerning leaks popped up on Broadway St., which has been a known problem area for water leaks, with old galvanized pipes that Howard said the city will have to replace this summer, though he said he has ordered extra fittings to make minor repairs in the meantime. A boil water advisory has been issued in that area until further notice.
“We fix one leak, then we’re finding new leaks as we we’re fixing those and walking the line,” Howard said of the water line repairs his office has been making. “We have a few leaks on Rt. 40 toward the county line, one on Burton Br., and a bad one on Coal Br., so we’re fixing the worst leaks first, giving priority to the ones losing the most water.”
Howard said he’s getting more temporary workers and moving guys around, bringing the road crew over to help fix the lines, with a total of six workers focusing on the water loss problem.
Dwayne Arnett, the manager of the Magoffin County Water District, said they are working closely with the city to help alleviate some of the issues, especially since the county buys water from the city. The county’s Three Stages water tank on Rt. 460 is gravity fed from the city’s Church St. tank, so any time the Church St. tank gets below 50%, it doesn’t feed the Three Stages tank, resulting in that tank being very low and risking water pressure in the Johnson Fork, Cripple Creek and Grape Creek areas.
Since the county water system is a distribution-only system, distributing water bought from Salyersville’s water system, Arnett said they can’t control how much water is in the city’s tank, but they try to plan in advance to offset issues during bad weather.
“We started preparing as soon as we heard it was coming,” Arnett said. “When they’re giving extreme cold, you 100% button up all problems you have because water is too precious and too hard to get in cold weather.”
Arnett said they checked for any minor repairs needed throughout the system, as well as filled up all of their tanks ahead of the bad weather last weekend, and contacted the city to let them know their plans of preparation so they could react accordingly.
With more bad weather in the forecast this weekend, Howard asked the community to conserve water as much as possible.
While Howard urged people to not leave water dripping overnight, Arnett just asked people to keep an eye on their water and try to safely thaw the line where it freezes when needed.
“The biggest tip I have is don’t leave the lid off of the water meter,” Arnett said. “They’re brass and have brass and copper parts and they will freeze ten times faster than the ground, so a lot of problems have been there. Just leave the lid on your water meter.”
While the current water leaks appear to be reasonably new, the problem itself has been documented numerous times through the Division of Water.
In a violation referral form from the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection, in a report from March 2024, Salyersville Municipal Water had continually exceeded their permitted water withdrawal amount for their permit over the previous decade, with the last time their withdrawals (as of that letter) were in compliance was December 2020. Salyersville had submitted an application for revision to their permit to allow for a higher water withdrawal amount, but that application was denied.
Within that same form, it shows that the city water system had continually exceeded their permitted withdrawal amount from 2014 through January 2023. The City had received non-compliance letter in March 2023, a notice of violation issued through the Drinking Water Branch in July 2023, and the state’s Water Supply Section and KRWA met with Salyersville Municipal Water in October that year. During that meeting, they reportedly discussed the potential remediation actions to meet compliance, including pursing interconnections, maintenance on existing interconnections, well maintenance, new sources, leak detection program and repairs. In November 2023, Salyersville submitted an application to revise their permit for a water withdrawal increase, but the City had not made any attempts on any of the remedial actions discussed at the October 2023 meeting. In March 2024, the state denied Salyersville’s application to revise their permit.
In a letter responding to the Division of Water’s Drinking Water Sanitary Survey Letter, in November 2025, the City of Salyersville included responses to non-significant deficiencies identified in the survey, including one highlighting that the system is exceeding the daily water permit limit. Salyersville’s response indicated there was no current plan to identify and fix water leaks, stating, “Salyersville is working with the Kentucky Rural Water Association to develop a leak detection plan to identify and repair unknown leaks within the distribution system. Reducing system losses will lower water demand and bring water withdrawals within permitted limits.”
Magoffin County Water District has also looked into being able to purchase water from surrounding counties they already have agreements with, but water districts across the region generally have the same issues at the same time. Basically, emergency water purchases, as what would be sought in the current situation, are impossible, with the other districts only producing enough water for their own systems at any given time and without ample notice.
