WEIRTON — The Weirton Area Water Board has hired outside legal counsel to assist in an ongoing investigation by the West Virginia Public Service Commission into the water issues which affected the city for much of the winter months.

Following an almost-30-minute executive session during Thursday’s board meeting, to discuss the PSC investigation, members of the board unanimously agreed to engage representation from Bowles Rice in the matter.

Dan Guida, the board’s regular legal counsel, explained the cost of the representation will depend on the length and depth of the investigation.

“If it’s a short investigation, then it’s not much,” Guida said. “There’s just no way to know.”

Board Vice Chair Don Gianni Jr. noted the investigation was spurred by a request from Del. Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, earlier this year, asking the PSC to look into issues surrounding the water system, which included a citywide conservation order issued Dec. 18 until March 12 in response to more than 100 water line breaks.

Various widespread boil orders also were put in place during that time.

The PSC announced it had agreed to conduct the investigation in late February. A public hearing has been scheduled for 6 p.m., April 23 at the Millsop Community Center, to take comment as part of the investigation.

According to a filing with the PSC, the Water Board states that “only 109 direct customers of the WAWB experienced an outage over the 2024-2025 winter.” The Weirton Area Water Board reports 9,300 direct customers.

Additional outages were experienced by customers of the Oakland Public Service District, which purchases approximately a quarter of its water from Weirton.

The Water Board requested the PSC narrow the scope of its investigation, as a result of its stated customers affected by the outages; however, in an order issued Thursday, the PSC denied such a request, “as the water breaks affected customers throughout the system.”