WEIRTON — The Weirton Area Water Board must submit a corrective plan within the next 90 days to address issues raised as part of a report by the West Virginia Public Service Commission.

The PSC issued its order Friday, requiring the water board to submit its plan “to address severe water problems and line leakages,” within Weirton’s water distribution system.

Among the areas the PSC is requiring the water board to address is a detailed plan on the replacement of cast iron and galvanized pipe during the next five years; a leak detection and repair program; how to achieve a water loss percentage of 15 percent or less; how to resolve violations of Bureau for Public Health standards; and having a process in place to alert customers by both text messages and email.

In an initial staff report, issued by the PSC in June, violations indicate the 6,125,000-gallon water storage tank capacity is not sufficient to meet the two-day minimum requirements for the city. In addition, the report states approximately 40 percent of Weirton’s water lines are not located below the frost line. Current requirements set a line depth of at least 42 inches, while the water board had, for years, followed a 36-inch depth.

The PSC also has ordered that, for each new customer, once a year for all customers, the water board “shall include in its bills a list of the many modes of access to information the customers will have during major outages or crises, including a number customers can contact to answer question during a crisis.”

The orders follow an investigation by the PSC resulting from a series of water breaks and outages which affected Weirton during three months.

The water board initiated a mandatory, citywide conservation order Dec. 18 as a result of several dozen water line breaks. The order would remain in place until March 12.

The conservation order was coupled with a series of boil orders during the same period, including one for the entirety of Weirton from Dec. 27 through Jan. 3, and one for the Weirton Heights area from Jan. 23 to Feb. 6.

The PSC opened an examination of the issues surrounding the outages and orders in late February.