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Mountain Drinking Water Project

A Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network Project

The NIEHS-funded Mountain Drinking Water Project (MDWP) focuses on developing cross-sectoral knowledge exchange to develop locally grounded solutions to problems of water management in small rural systems that result in unhealthy levels of Disinfection Byproducts (DBPs). There are two sections to this project: 

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Aim 1: LiKEN is helping to coordinate the “Stakeholder Consultation Core” (SCC) advisory group that is steering this project. The SCC is made up of community-based organizations as well as members from the health sector, water utility sector, and local and state governing agencies. LiKEN’s role is to help with face-to-face and virtual meetings, to conduct qualitative interviews, to facilitate dialogue and deliberation, and help to develop educational, outreach, and communication materials for various audiences.

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Aim 2: The project is working with several hundred citizen scientists in Letcher and Martin Counties in eastern Kentucky who gather water samples in their households and help to analyze the causes of, and solutions for, problems related to DBPs.

 

This project is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) through a sub-award from the University of Kentucky (UK).

A researcher wearing rubber gloves caps a water sample above a kitchen sink.
Appalachian Citizens Law Center interns gather tap water in Martin County, Kentucky, to test for Disinfection Byproducts (DBPs). Photo by Madison Mooney.

Martin County Disinfection Byproducts Case Study

This study investigated spatial and seasonal variation in disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in Martin County, Kentucky’s rural public drinking water system by sampling from 97 homes over a year, revealing that haloacetic acids (HAAs) peaked in summer and trihalomethanes (THMs) in early fall, with temperature and conductivity influencing their concentrations—especially brominated DBPs, which are more toxic and were linked to increased conductivity during low river flow, highlighting concerns about seasonal exposure risk in small, infrastructure-limited water systems.

Case Study
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