This is a surface water treatment plant and it gets the water from the Monongahela river. Treating surface water, particularly from a river, is complicated and energy intensive. If they were actually getting it from a well, or a spring, they could just pump it out, add some chlorine to it, and send it on its way. That’s why you can get water from a well and not treat it.

In that area I would be suspicious of ground water sources just because contamination by the fossil fuel industry seems to be so common. But that does not appear to be an issue with this water company

On another note, you may have picked up on the fact that I’ve been investigating this place for a long time. I can tell you absolute confidence that this is a problem with corruption and not funding. I do hope that they end up suing the state of Pennsylvania and the public utility commission in particular because if literally anyone had been able to step in these people would have clean water. These people begged for intervention for years and were repeatedly told that no one has jurisdiction over the authority.

Last year the public utility commission decided that they did have jurisdiction based on the fact that the authority was operating outside if its municipality without a certificate of convenience, and the joint settlement that was proposed just in the last couple months included a clause that would take them back outside of PUC jurisdiction. This was the best chance that people had to have a government agency finally step in and put an end to what was happening, and the public utility commission just threw up their hands and tried to walk away.