Not all Kentuckians are hooked up to city wastewater services.

That's the case for residents of Hazel green, a small eastern Kentucky town, and Wolfe County.

But as our June Lefler reports, that's about to change.

It's a celebration in Hazel green.

The town secured money for its first wastewater treatment plant, meaning businesses in the near future won't have to dispose of their own dirty water.

Like this meat processing plant.

You can imagine this process is, requires a lot of water.

There's a lot of sterilization, a lot of cleaning.

Everything's done under USDA guidelines.

So there is a huge expense related to disposing of that wastewater properly.

And having this infrastructure will help mitigate that expense and could help us grow.

We can do more for this community.

Another company that makes firefighting gear will reap the same benefits.

You know, we're making gear to save people's lives every day, and that's we take a lot of pride in what we do.

500 people work at Lyons, eastern Kentucky plants.

These companies bring in many more workers to Hazel green than the number of full time residents, at roughly 30.

Wolfe County is one of the poorest counties in the nation.

And so we're excited about with this infrastructure that will have more people move and the possibility for more economic development and raise the standard of living for everyone in the community.

Businesses and schools like Red River Valley Elementary have their sewage pumped on site one to several times a week.

It's costly and omits a certain smell.

Officials say businesses want an alternative when.

They come for a site visit.

You know, is is sewer readily available?

Is water readily available?

And when it's not in those areas, they'll move on to somewhere else where it is.

For the people of Hazel green, there's now a future where they could ditch their septic tanks and tap into the public system.

To flush the.

And then it just takes away.

And they don't ever have to worry about having a solar system ever again.

Ideally, your septic system isn't that old and you have the money to pay a professional to pump it.

It's surprising how little information is like, say, passed on.

When you buy a house.

You don't necessarily know where your septic system is or if you have a septic system or when it was last pumped out.

So you know, there's this all this personal responsibility that you don't really get a handbook on.

The Kentucky Waterway Alliance educates people on how to maintain their septic system, in part because when they fail, these systems become a public health concern.

When you start talking about wastewater, people really mostly want to talk about drinking water.

And I'm just like these two go together because where your wastewater discharge goes is also the same source that you're drinking water is coming from.

If I have a septic system that hasn't been pumped in 30 years and is potentially overflowing, and I also have a well right next to that, then I could potentially be contaminating my own drinking water source.

The local health department does get complaints of wastewater being dumped into streams and the Red River.

Yes.

Yeah, we have failing septic systems and sewage that is going into the river.

We get reports of straight pipes from time to time, and so we go out and investigate those at the health department, and we work with the property owner to make sure that that's addressed appropriately.

But, you know, you have sometimes people that just can't afford to fix that.

So we work with them with the best option we can.

And try to repair an aged system.

And sometimes it's a challenge.

This is all possible with state dollars and federal grants.

Small and poor towns do not have the tax base to do this on their own.

It's unfortunate that we're disadvantaged, but at the same point in time, by being disadvantaged, we do qualify for a lot of grants, which will hopefully someday make us not disadvantaged.

And that's the goal.

This state senator fought for the funding in Frankfort.

Funny that.

And in this day and age that we're still fighting for water and sewer projects.

I mean, I have to say that's, so to me just seems farfetched.

One state fund for poor communities water needs received 150 project applications last year.

Just 11% got the money, much of it going towards severe needs in Morgan County.

It took Hazel green 12 years to secure its funding.

But it's just that simple, Tom.

You know, I've had projects.

I've got one in Letcher that's been 26 years.

And it's not for lack of need.

It's just sometimes there might be a better project.

Even though this project is a fantastic project.

And so you just have to keep trying, and you keep trying and you never give up.

It could take two, three or more years to build the wastewater treatment plant and connect to customers who will likely pay some monthly service fee.

Officials say it will be worth the wait.

For Kentucky edition, I'm Jim Lefler.

Thank you, John, for that report.

A 2025 report on America's infrastructure says nationwide, 20% of Americans depend on septic tanks, not centralized wastewater systems.