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Since 1997, thirty Virginian communities have participated in the Self-Help water project. The state has spent $6.1 million on projects that would have traditionally cost over $15.5 million. Some of the savings comes from lower regulatory and inspection standards, but most of the millions are saved by employing volunteer workers rather than specialized, technical labor. The nearly $10 million in savings makes the project feasible and now roughly one thousand households have running water for the first time. The creative cooperation between government and community, and the bureaucratic flexibility of the program, are rare, if not unheard of, in most state governments. Although Self-Help’s novel structure caused a bit of a struggle at the beginning, and although the complex demands of terrain at each site pose continuing challenges, more and more people in and out of government are becoming impressed by its success.
Self-Help’s earliest convert was Jimmy Wallace, an employee of Virginia’s Department of Housing and Community Development who is now the supervisor of the project. In 1997, Mr. Wallace’s superior sent him to a seminar in Texas to find out about a Self-Help experiment the state had conducted using a model developed by the Rensselaerville Institute, a think tank in upstate New York. Mr. Wallace attended the seminar and reported on it to his superiors, but he thought the idea could not succeed on the large scale needed in Virginia. The Texans themselves were doubtful that a project could work in mountainous terrain like Appalachia. Mr. Wallace’s supervisors, however, thought that Virginia could overcome the challenge posed by terrain, and they asked him to design a modified project for Tazewell County. It was a smashing success and Mr. Wallace “went from the Saul of Self-Help to the Paul of Self-Help,” he reflects.
Of the seventeen states now involved in Self-Help projects, Virginia dominates the field. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently awarded Self-Help Virginia a “Recognition of Excellence” for being “particularly innovative and successful.” Virginia Governor Mark Warner has strongly supported the project and even spent a day digging himself at a Self-Help site, during his campaign. The Copperhead project is a particularly impressive example, Mr. Wallace said, because of the excellent volunteer work force. Every project has a volunteer leader, known as a “sparkplug.” A good sparkplug is one of the approval criteria for a proposed project site. According to Mr. Wallace, the Copperhead sparkplug, Mr. Charlie Bostic, is one of the best. Mr. Bostic was a professional coal miner, working in smaller mines called “truck mines” until job-related back injuries took him out of the work force. Mr. Bostic worked with Mr. Wallace to organize supplies, map out the best way to lay the water pipes, and build a volunteer force.
That force includes Mr. Bostic’s wife, an ex-road worker whose job as head of maintenance at the local high school leaves her much of the summer to do volunteer work. Mr. Bostic has also recruited and cajoled his neighbors (and one or two of his brothers) to donate their free time. Mr. Wallace says that the high number of retirees and injured volunteers at Copperhead, workers willing to cope with the aches and pains of age and injury for the sake of the project, contributes to Copperhead’s superior performance. In particular, they can be at work five or six days a week, as opposed to the volunteers in many Self-Help projects, who can only work on weekends. Two Public Service Authority employees complete the team, supervising and operating the heavy machinery. Most of the volunteers have extensive experience in manual labor and machine operation, resulting in high performance and spirited debate about the best ways to solve the problems that constantly crop up.
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