ROCKPORT — Kim Sargent keeps an eye on the weather. It’s how she decides when to do her laundry as most of the water that flows through Sargent’s home comes from the rainwater she collects.

“If it doesn’t rain, and you’ve done laundry, then you’re taking a chance on running out of water,” she said.  

She hauled city water to her Wood County home for over 20 years before she started collecting the rain. Before that, she relied on a private well, but it sank after three years. When drillers told her there was no guarantee that she’d have water if they cleaned her well out or drilled a new one, Sargent opted to forgo the well. 

“You might hit water, you might not. You’re still out the money,” Sargent said.

Since the drought in West Virginia began, Sargent has relied on her neighbors to haul water to a cistern at her house.

Over the last six months, Mountain State Spotlight reporters traveled across the state to ask West Virginians what they wanted to hear candidates talk about as they sought their votes. 

Everywhere, we heard about the water.  

Across the Northern Panhandle, residents buy bottled water because their aging systems spit out discolored or smelly city water. In Putnam, Ritchie and Webster counties, folks haul hundreds of gallons of water to their homes as they wait for nearby systems to extend lines to their communities. And during a community listening session in Welch, an attendee brought in a 16-ounce plastic bottle filled with water from Wyoming County that was brown with floating particles.

“It’s tough on folks,” said Rev. Brad Davis. 

When Davis learned that communities in McDowell County didn’t have reliable drinking water because of aging systems and had to buy or haul water to their homes, he began coordinating weekly water distribution events in the county. Water concerns are severe in the coalfields as many communities have remained under boil water advisories for years waiting for their systems to be repaired.  

“Having to rely on buying bottled water all the time is an economic hardship on folks who are already economically burdened,” Davis said.

Tens of thousands of West Virginia residents rely on systems that state officials classified as “marginal or failing” in a 2023 report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These systems “pose a constant threat of disruption to their customers’ drinking water supply,” and they are a threat to “customers’ health and welfare and are an impediment to economic development,” according to the state Department of Health. 

Since 2002, the number of failing systems has decreased by 84% according to data from the report. Some failing or marginal systems have merged with more viable systems and others have made improvements.

West Virginia has expanded access to drinking water and made progress in the maintenance of already existing water systems. 

The growth of state funding for these projects has been spurred on by “historic” investments in water and sewer infrastructure by the federal government. Through the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and American Rescue Plan Act, West Virginia has seen significant boosts of funding specifically for water-related projects since 2021. U.S. Reps. Alex Mooney and Carol Miller voted against both pieces of legislation, and U.S. Rep. David McKinley and Senator Shelley Moore Capito voted against the American Rescue Plan Act.

Millions of dollars for a billions of dollars problem 

Once all the money from those two pieces of legislation is allocated, the state is projected to receive almost $1 billion for water and sewer projects, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“We are miles and miles ahead of where we were,” said Amy Swann, who sits on the board of the state’s Water Development Authority. She added that over the years the state has also established agencies and policies that have helped make the process to improve water and sewer infrastructure more effective. 

But the need is still much larger than the resources available. 

Earlier this year, Gov. Jim Justice announced that the state had invested about $736 million in water and sewer projects between 2017 and 2024. During the September special session, the Legislature earmarked another $225 million for water and sewer projects, bringing the state’s total spending on these projects to $961 million in seven years.

But the state’s water and sewer needs would cost between $16 and $20 billion according to the 2023 Needs Assessment by the central funding authority for infrastructure projects throughout the state. 

It would cost about $1 billion to fix and update water systems for just the communities that have already requested funds. Another $1.3 billion could provide sewer system improvements.

It would cost $2.1 billion to connect West Virginians who don’t already have it to public water infrastructure, and nearly $12 billion for city sewer infrastructure access for everyone. 

And those costs don’t account for routine system upgrades and maintenance, which could be $4 billion more. 

As with West Virginia’s other infrastructure issues, including roads and broadband, there “aren’t any solutions that could be implemented overnight,” said Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monogalia. Hansen runs Downstream Strategies, an environmental and economic development consulting firm.

“But funding goes a long way if the state is able to dedicate sufficient funds to address these issues, and then they can be addressed with proper planning,” Hansen said.

“We’re not going to reach everybody immediately. It’s going to take years of a lot of money coming in,” said Marie Prezioso, executive director of the state Water Development Authority. 

Craig Hart, the Republican candidate for the Senate’s 6th District, teaches agriculture at Tug Valley High School in Mingo County. He spoke about how the lack of water impacts his students’ learning. 

“My students regularly go without showers or home cooked food due to not having water. My students refer to mid-week as “No Water Wednesday” and the end of the week as “No Power Friday.”

Hart said the coalfields built the state and the state has turned its back on them.

“Who wants to invest in a community that lacks basic utilities? Even our tourists demand reliable water, power and emergency services,” he said.

‘Give these people some money so they can have clean water’ 

Meanwhile, state lawmakers have passed roughly the same budget amount year to year since 2021 while continuing to approve and celebrate historic tax cuts. Since 2023, state lawmakers have passed two tax cuts for residents, totaling more than 23%, and a policy that triggers another  cut in years with a significant surplus.

As a result of keeping West Virginia’s budget the same and not increasing spending year to year, the state has a surplus this year — something lawmakers have repeatedly touted this election cycle. 

Meanwhile, residents of the southern coalfields have spent months raising awareness of their dire water situation through online petitions, social media posts and campaigns through state and local advocacy groups and various news articles.  

130 customers in the McDowell Public Service District need about $6.1 million to repair the water system in Anawalt and extend lines to serve another 60 in Leckie. They are still waiting on funding.

“That’s less than 1% of the budget surplus that the state claims that it has,” Davis said. “Give these people some money so they can have clean water.”  

Back in Wood County, Sargent thinks about the people at the base of the ridge she lives on, how they can wash their cars or keep green and lively gardens — things she’d like to do but can’t because she’s always conserving her water.   

“I should be allowed to have water,” Sargent said. “I’m not far from town, and it’s all the way around me, and I don’t have water.”

For tens of thousands of West Virginians who need clean water, a $1 billion investment is a drop in the bucket appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

KEYSER — Inside S & H Variety, a thrift store right off Main Street, Vanessa Broadwater, a longtime Mineral County resident, emerged through the narrow aisle lined with racks of clothes, cabinets of dainty china and packed bookshelves. 

As she walked, Broadwater reflected on the loss of Luke Paper Mill in 2019. She said the mill was one of the few major and well-paying employers in the county. But even before it closed, many residents in the region relied on finding well-paying jobs out of state. 

“There’s just no opportunities,” said Broadwater, a West Virginia native. “There’s just nothing here for the younger kids.” 

All but one of her five children stayed in the county. However, Broadwater knows some of her grandchildren are looking forward to leaving.  

“The youngest can’t wait to turn 18, so she can get out,” she said.

For many residents across Mineral, Hampshire and Morgan counties, leaving has been their only option to find well-paying jobs. Those who’ve stayed have opted for long commutes to Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. for livable wages.

Mountain State Spotlight visited all three counties this month, asking residents about the biggest challenges their communities face. They frequently spoke about the need for more well-paying jobs and affordable housing. Residents also said they’d like to see increased access to basic services, including broadband and health care.

Across town from the thrift store, on the edge of the quad at Potomac State College of West Virginia, computer science student Josh See lamented that he’ll likely have to move away from West Virginia for work.

“I think my options are pretty limited with staying here,” said See. “If I have to move, I’d have to move. I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it as long as there’s a decently paying job, and I can live comfortably.” 

Teacher salaries aren’t competitive

The need for higher wages has affected school systems in all three counties, as schools struggle to find teachers.

In the banquet hall at the Country Inn of Berkeley Springs, members of the Berkeley Springs Rotary Club discussed Morgan County’s inability to retain or hire qualified teachers, largely because they can earn more in neighboring states.  

“It’s just a 15-minute drive to Maryland and an hour to Virginia, and that’s where we lose a lot of ours,” said Allison Maconaughey, the current president of the club and a mom of two.

The average teacher salary in West Virginia is about $53K, about 10K less than in Virginia and 27K, less than in Maryland, according to the National Education Association. West Virginia ranks 51st in average teacher salary nationwide. 

As a result, students have lost teachers mid-way through the school year, and teachers who stay often have to work “double duty” or fill in for subjects that they’re not necessarily prepared for, Maconaughey said.

Some residents said it isn’t only work they are seeking outside their counties, but other resources, including recreational activities and healthcare services.

Beside the Liberty Gas Station off U.S. Route 50 near Romney in Hampshire County, January Dillinger and her daughter, Lilly, carried boxes of produce to a white building with a red roof, awning and door. Inside the Barefoot Farmer produce store, Dillinger, a county native, said the options for kids and younger residents are scarce.

The other night, the county’s youth football program was relegated to practice on the baseball field because it’s the only field with lights. And there aren’t enough gyms in the area to accommodate the number of people wanting to play basketball, Dillinger said.

“I can’t take my kids on a bike ride because there isn’t anywhere safe to do it,” she said.

Because of the few options in the county, the mom of three often travels outside the state to find activities to do with her kids. 

“If you want to do something in this area, you almost guarantee that you’re going to travel to Cumberland, or you’re going to travel to Winchester [Virginia] or beyond to be able to do that,” Dillinger said. 

Hampshire County native Melanie Chaer also blames the lack of activities for costing the community its younger residents. 

“There’s no recreation here for them to do anything,” she said. 

Limited resources for mental health and addiction

Aside from recreation, Dillinger said that many people, especially seniors in Hampshire County, travel outside the county for specialty medical services given the limited options. This past summer Dillinger’s mom spent two months in Winchester after being diagnosed with sepsis because of an infection in her hand. 

Residents in the three counties spoke about the insufficient number of medical professionals, including general practitioners, therapists and gynecologists. They said they often have a months-long waitlist, prompting people to seek health services elsewhere. 

Those in Morgan County often travel to Hagerstown, Winchester or Martinsburg for healthcare services, Maconaughey said. 

And those seeking mental health providers are looking at a “six to eight week wait to get an initial evaluation, if not longer,” said Audrey Morris, director of Morgan County Family Support Center.

Mineral County resident Alante Coleman spoke about how difficult it was to find a mental health counselor when she moved back to the county from South Carolina earlier this year. When Coleman finally found a provider, it was a three-month wait for an appointment. The delay meant she lost her sense of control over her situation.

“I was on [top of] the mental health. I was on the medications. And then I got here,” she said. 

Along with an increased need for general medical and mental health services, there’s also a need for more addiction treatment and recovery resources in the counties.

“We need a lot more when it comes to drug rehabilitation. Places for people to go,” said AJay Root, administrator for the Mineral County Health Department. He added that the closest treatment center is about an hour and a half away in Morgantown. 

Community resource providers in Mineral County also said they want to see investments in programs that prevent addiction and mental health crises, so they aren’t always in triage mode. But because of the limited resources, they often have to wait until situations become urgent. Even then, there’s no guarantee any help will be available. 

There’s been several instances of residents in critical condition unable to access services or treatment because of insufficient resources in the community, said Dayla Harvey, executive director of the Mineral County Family Resource Network.

Limited housing options

A few miles away, in downtown Keyser, as Broadwater opens a jewelry display for a customer, she reflects on the available housing in the community. 

“The quality of the housing is just horrible. And young people just don’t have any options,” she said. One of her granddaughters just moved out of her new rental apartment because the paint on the walls was peeling, exposing her to old layers of lead-based paint.

Broadwater said the number of available rental units in the county is already slim, and there are even fewer that are safe and affordable. And while the county has income-based housing, it’s not nearly enough to accommodate the number of people who need it. 

“Mineral County has options. However, they’re limited,” Harvey said. “The need is greater than what we can provide.”

The income-based housing in Hampshire and Morgan counties is also not enough to meet the needs of the community. And as tourism grows in the region, especially in Morgan County, the available housing is even more scarce as it’s often picked up and turned into AirBnBs or second homes.  

Along with the limited supply of housing, affordable options are a growing challenge for residents in Hampshire and Morgan counties as well. As the population has grown and people with higher incomes have moved into the region, the cost of housing has greatly increased and priced out local communities

Terri Beard, a Morgan resident, thinks it’s sad that the area can’t offer more to reward people who choose to stay. She said it’s discouraging that the state’s teachers go to school, get their degrees and can only afford low income housing.

“Isn’t that a shame,”  Beard asked.

Wages, housing and health care are top priorities for voters in Mineral, Hampshire and Morgan counties appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

MARLINTON — Tourism is rapidly growing in Pocahontas County, where the headwaters of eight rivers flow and miles of trails attract hikers and bikers. But, while many locals embrace the influx of visitors, it has created some challenges. 

Mountain State Spotlight visited Pocahontas County as part of our initiative to talk to voters in all 55 counties in the lead-up to the 2024 Election. In each county, reporters are asking a simple question: What do you want to hear candidates talking about as they compete for votes?

From Hillsboro to Bartow, residents said they need a solution to the lack of affordable housing in the area, additional resources for county public schools and more grocery stores or places to shop. 

In Marlinton, the county seat, business owners and longtime residents say they’ve seen a daily uptick of visitors since the pandemic brought people from urban areas to the state. 

“We’re just average-joe people living in a tourist town,” said Anne Walker, owner of the Handmade WV Market.

In the back of her store, displays house colorful artwork, patterned quilts and tie-dyed shirts from local artisans. Near the entrance, handmade beaded bracelets and jewelry sit adjacent to fresh vegetables and jars of jam. 

Walker said business has been steady since the market opened three years ago, but that changes with tourism seasons. Most tourists visiting are stragglers from Snowshoe Mountain Resort or bikers on the 77-mile Greenbrier River Trail. 

Next door at Greenbrier Bikes, owner Scott Geyette sees bike riders from all over the country who come to town for biking gear or repairs at his shop. 

With new bikes lining both corners of the shop, Geyette said that since moving to the area in 2011, he’s seen the town transform. Many new businesses opened following the pandemic. 

“We’re trying to be a destination for people to come and spend their tourism dollars,” he said. “And it’s working.”

Nicknamed “Nature’s Mountain Playground,” Pocahontas County boasts activities including riding the Cass Scenic Railroad, skiing at Snowshoe Mountain Resort and hiking at Watoga State Park or the Cranberry Glades. 

However, like in nearby counties, the strong tourism investment has led to a housing shortage and rising prices for residents. 

Housing prices, available inventory remain an issue for many 

Back at the market, Walker assisted her next customer and said finding housing has been a big issue for people in the area. 

She said local landlords are turning rental properties into Airbnbs as demand has grown, further limiting supply for long-term rentals. 

“The price of land has gone up, while the availability of housing has gone down since the pandemic,” she said. “Rural areas have become a sanctuary, and we’ve become a sanctuary for people living in the cities.”

Her customer, Marty Giddings, who is a real estate broker from Slaty Fork, added that the housing market atop Snowshoe Mountain has affected other markets across the county. She said she most recently closed on a $1.8 million listing there. 

“Housing is incredibly difficult because of Snowshoe,” she said. “Landlords can get residual income from the resort through rentals. So, locals end up not being able to afford to buy something because the prices are crazy.”

20 minutes south in Hillsboro, at the Hillsboro Public House, visitors are enjoying a menu of salads, burgers and desserts. The pandemic-born eatery had three years of extensive renovations but was opened last year. 

Owner Terrell McSweeney Burns moved to the area in the late 1990s and owns rental properties and businesses in town.

She said she’s struggled to find skilled labor like culinary chefs and the housing market has hindered her search.

“I could recruit from further away if I had housing to offer people, but I can’t,” she said. “I’m limited because there’s not enough housing here.”

Last year, Pocahontas County was designated as a Build WV zone, which is a state initiative to build more affordable housing. Developers can apply, and projects that are approved receive a sales tax exemption on building materials and property tax credits. 

McSweeney Burns said she’s struggled with making rent prices of her properties affordable while also receiving returns on investments and figuring out how to develop land she owns. 

“This tax credit thing they passed is a great start,” she said. “But, it’s not even close to trying to figure out the economics of someone like me actually developing properties.”

County public schools need more funding, resources for students

With a population of a little more than 7,800, the county only has one high school but several elementary schools. 

As a mom of two teenage kids, McSweeney Burns said there need to be more resources for the school system and more pay for teachers. 

“We don’t even have a scoreboard on our baseball field for the high school,” she said. “If we could invest more in the schools so that the kids felt more support and had real sports programs and real music programs, that would be great.”

In March, high school students walked out of classes in protest of proposed budget cuts that would’ve eliminated multiple teaching positions. 

The county Board of Education voted to save a position in April but cited rising costs and decreased federal and state funding as reasons for the cuts. 

On the northern end of the county, Dunmore resident Teresa Lambert works as a culinary arts teacher at the high school and runs the Mountain State Cakes Bakery. 

She said the school system could use more supportive programs for struggling students as more than half of them do not live with their parents. 

“It’s sad because we have lots of students who could do a lot of wonderful things, but when you have that kind of home life, that’s your focus,” she said. 

More grocery stores, places to shop in the county

Residents also said they’d like more local places to shop or pick up household supplies and groceries instead of driving out of the county. 

Up north in Cass, the scenic railroad gift shop features a range of items for thousands of visitors riding the train every year. From branded baseball caps to toy train whistles and playing cards, new souvenirs are stocked daily.  

Amanda Bennett, who works as the receptionist for tickets, said she lives in Bartow but doesn’t mind making the 25-minute commute for work as she makes an even longer one just to pick up a loaf of bread. 

“It’s not very crowded here, and it’s peaceful, but the worst part is going to buy groceries,” she said. “I have to go almost an hour away to Elkins.”

Even in Marlinton, resident and local craftmaker Cheryl Cane said she loves where she lives and how close-knit the community is but wishes she didn’t have to travel so far for her essentials. It would be nice to have some of the stores in the cities, she said. 

“We have one grocery store, one dollar store and one pharmacy.”

Tourism is booming in Pocahontas County. It’s causing problems for some locals appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

BUCKHANNON — A flurry of visitors and volunteers entered the Upshur County Parish House as early autumn sunlight warmed the white rocking chairs on the porch. 

It’s just after 8 a.m., and it’s busy. 

Inside, a bustling waiting room held those seeking help with their bills. Back in the kitchen, volunteers prepared lunches for residents to take home. 

Upstairs, parents were getting formula and diapers for their newborns. In the basement, volunteers prepared to hand out canned goods, frozen meals and bread for families.

As the house filled with visitors, Executive Director Isaac Casto said the charity is expanding to reach residents in other parts of the county and serving a growing number of families.

“We’re really proud that we’re able to help, but it’s also sad,” he said. “We realize that the more we’re expanding, the only reason that’s happening is because people are hurting.”

Mountain State Spotlight visited Upshur County as part of our initiative to talk to voters in all 55 counties in the lead-up to the 2024 election. In each county, reporters are asking a simple question: What do you want to hear candidates talking about as they compete for votes?

Residents said they need the public education system fixed, more investment in social services for those in poverty and facing hunger and a plan to combat rising costs. 

The Parish House has been working to feed hungry children in county schools, especially after programs such as a weekend lunch program were cut last year.

“We understand that for a lot of the students, having breakfast and lunch at school is the only guaranteed meal that they have,” said Casto, a former teacher.

More social services are needed 

Across the street from the Parish House, is West Virginia Wesleyan College’s Center for Community Engagement and Leadership Development. 

The center connects students with volunteer opportunities to work in schools and community centers on issues like poverty and hunger.

Sienna Chenoweth, a sophomore studying biology, said there were not enough resources funneled into education or social services throughout the county. Chenoweth works on a team addressing poverty with other students and volunteers in Buckhannon. 

“We have more and more people who are food insecure and struggling to make ends meet, even with two jobs,” she said.

About a 20-minute drive south, outside the IGA grocery store in Rock Cave, Virginia Ables took a break from her job as an office assistant. She’s worked there for 16 years and lived in the area for three and a half decades. 

It’s a safe and peaceful community, she said. Like many places, there are some problems with drugs, but in 35 years, she hasn’t locked her door once.

Ables said she’d like to see candidates talk about the economy and what they plan to do about rising costs. Prices have gone “sky high” at the grocery store, and business has slowed down.

“People just buy basics that they have to buy,” she said. “They don’t splurge much.”

Stronger investment in public education 

Freshman nursing student Matthew Hatfield volunteers at nearby Tennerton Elementary School. On Fridays, he puts together food bags for students to take home and said there are always extra kids who ask for food.

“So many kids come in hungry,” he said.

Hatfield, a native of Oceana, said he’s worried about West Virginia’s steadily aging population and is torn about whether to stay in the state after he graduates. 

His family is here, but there are limited opportunities. He wants to see what’s out there but doesn’t know if he could leave a state that he loves so much. 

“It’s like a teeter-totter,” he said, adding that his best idea right now is to be a travel nurse for a few years to make money before settling down back home.

Coming to Wesleyan has been a big transition for Hatfield. He said his high school education wasn’t very rigorous and he hopes elected officials will make sure that the next generation of kids fares better.

“I really do think we need to focus on the education system — more that prepares us for college,” he said.

Jess Vincent, director of the the Center, said students are underprepared for college courses because educators have struggled with limited resources.

In 2022, Upshur County voters rejected a Board of Education levy that would have provided millions of dollars in increased funding for the district. She said after-school programs, jobs and bus services have been cut as a result. 

“If students can’t even get out of the county, especially on a field trip, how are they ever going to think about college?” she said.

Lexi de Coning, communications professor, said that over nine years at Wesleyan, she’s seen significant changes with first-year students and education funding is the largest factor. 

“Education and poverty are interrelated,” she said. “The literacy rates of my students have decreased dramatically. I’m having to give more leeway with assignments and deadlines.” 

History and political science student Ian Wychoff said he came to Wesleyan because its small size reminded him of growing up in nearby Weston. As he thinks about whether to stay in West Virginia after graduation, he knows he wants to be in a place small enough to make a difference. He wants a place where he is one of thousands instead of one of millions.

“It’s a better chance I can actually help and actually do something,” he said.

Trey Greer, a political science and criminal justice student, said that he’s frustrated by the extreme polarization in politics. After college, he plans to attend law school and hopes to one day become a state lawmaker.

But for current candidates, he wants to know what their positive vision is for West Virginia and the state’s future. “What hope can you provide for West Virginians now?”

‘What hope can you provide?’ Upshur County residents say rising costs are leaving people hungry and schools underfunded appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

Carolyn Wilson sat on her deck, looking out at the railroad tracks that run through Flemington, and reflected on the toll the drug epidemic has taken on her family.

One of her daughters is in prison. She thinks the other one is in Clarksburg, but she doesn’t hear from her.

“You see them destroying themselves, and there’s nothing you can do,” Wilson said. 

Mountain State Spotlight is asking people in all 55 of West Virginia’s counties what they would like to hear candidates talking about as they compete for votes. In Taylor County, residents said they’re concerned about drugs, crime and the rising cost of living.

After seeing her grandchildrens’ experiences, Wilson said she’d like elected leaders to improve the state’s child welfare system by retaining quality Child Protective Services workers and stricter vetting for foster care parents.

“The foster care system is broken,” she said.

Next door, Carol Ware said she likes the slower pace of life in Taylor County. Most of her in-laws live in the nearby houses on the hillside and it feels safe. 

But, she worries about crime and about her daughter who attends West Virginia University, particularly now that concealed carry is allowed on college campuses.

“Teachers should be teaching, not carrying guns,” she said.

Flemington, a town of around 300 people, sits along railroad tracks. The railroad is an industry that was vital to the development of Taylor County. Eastbound trains pass through on the way to Grafton, one of the nation’s first railroad towns and the county seat.

At the turn of the 20th century, Grafton was a boom-town as coal and timber were transported to the nation. Glass factories also provided stable employment.

Today, the largest employers in the county are a coal mine owned by a subsidiary of Arch Coal, the schools, Walmart, the hospital and the state prison in Pruntytown.

Behind the counter at Robert’s New & Used, an antique store in Grafton, Cheryl Austin greets visitors with a smile. She looks after the store for the owner from time to time. A lifelong resident, she homeschooled her kids after her son was bullied in elementary school.

She said she wishes that there were more fun activities like parks or pools in the area to keep kids and adults out of trouble. There’s things to do in Bridgeport, but that’s a 25-minute drive away.

“The kids in Taylor County are not going to go to Bridgeport because a lot of them are poor,” she said.

At the antique store, she said some people come in who are visibly high. Austin said drug addiction has gotten worse and it’s the biggest issue facing the area. 

“It’s horrible in this town,” she said.

She gives each person who visits the store a card about the love of Jesus, and she prays over it, hoping they’ll find Christ.

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Austin isn’t on social media and hardly watches television. But she said she appreciated a candidate who stopped by the store to hand out a brochure that included her personal cell phone number.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I could actually talk to her or read it,’” Austin said, adding that she did vote for the candidate because she wasn’t hiding behind false promises.

On the front porch of his house along the river in Grafton, Doug Spring fiddles with a cigarette and leans back with a calm expression. He moved here when he was six and has lived here most of his life.

“I’m a country boy,” he said. “West Virginia’s country. You either hunt, fish or that’s it.”

For over two decades, he worked at a glass factory in Taylor County until it closed in 2015. After going through a job retraining program, he works at the Clarksburg airport in aviation maintenance.

The biggest issue on his mind as the election approaches is the drug epidemic. He said he’d like to see law enforcement more aggressively investigate and prosecute people who sell drugs. 

It’s been difficult to watch his kids deal with addiction.

“Me and my wife, we’ve had to endure a lot of pain,” he said. “Watching them go through that and not being able to help them.”

His daughter lives in nearby Bridgeport while his two sons still live in Grafton. 

The sons live nearby and work at Rex-Hide Industries, which operates a tire flaps factory just north of town. But Spring said the area needs more jobs and he hates to see his sons have to work just as hard as he did for fewer benefits.

“When I first started — I’m 61 — I did get a pension,” he said. “Now, you don’t get a pension. You don’t get healthcare. You don’t get nothing, unless you pay for it.”

Empty talk from politicians at the federal level frustrates him, and he’d like to hear them talk about the policies they plan to enact. 

“How are you going to save me money?” he asked. “How are you going to lower my taxes?” 

But he thinks West Virginia and elected officials are doing pretty well — not a lot of complaints.

“I think that they are trying to do good for the state.”

As election nears, Taylor County residents look for candidates to address opioid epidemic and bring jobs appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

When Amanda Saint went to vote in the 2020 election, she didn’t anticipate having any problems. For years, the 36-year-old nurse had been living and voting just outside of Huntsville, Alabama. But when Saint presented her driver’s license to the poll worker, they said it didn’t match her voter registration records. 

The reason was simple: when Saint got married in 2011, she changed her name with the Social Security Administration. They listed her as “Amanda Lenore Saint,” using her middle name. But Saint’s driver’s license says her name is “Amanda Glasscock Saint,” using her maiden name. 

Such discrepancies are relatively common. According to research from the University of Maryland, roughly 12% of Americans have a non-expired driver’s license that doesn’t list both their current address and name. 

“So I go, ‘Yeah it’s my maiden name instead of my middle name, but I’m still the same person. You saw me at the primaries when I voted. I didn’t have a problem then,’” Saint said. 

But poll workers still required Saint to vote provisionally. To this day, Saint doesn’t know if her provisional ballot was accepted. 

“I felt extremely frustrated because I’m just trying to do my civic duty,” Saint said. “I do the state elections and the primaries because they are important, and to not be able to vote in the big one except with a provisional ballot which may or may not be accepted because of a technical error that I had never dealt with? I fumed about it for months afterward.” 

Most Appalachian states require voters to present some form of ID at the polls. Within the region, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia have implemented new voter ID requirements since the 2020 election, according to USA Today. But all across Appalachia, photo ID requirements of all kinds — new and old, stricter and more lenient — are deeply intertwined with a complex web of legislation, lawsuits and logistical barriers. 

The combined effect? A voting process that gets more complicated by the day. 

‘Just a form of suppression’ 

Karen Pawloski has lived in southeastern Ohio for decades. But she didn’t begin working as deputy director of the Washington County Board of Elections until January 2020 — an experience she describes as “baptism by fire.” 

Since Pawloski’s tenure began, Ohio has made significant changes to its voter ID requirements. Previously, voters could bring non-photographic documents — such as bank statements or utility bills — to the polls to prove their identities. 

“We’re trying to do as much public relations as we can and educating the voters that they do have to bring in a picture ID now,” Pawloski said. “We’re using social media, and any time I interview with the local TV station here, we try to make sure that the voters know that…Voters that come and vote every election, they’re fine. But voters that only vote during presidential years, this is something new for them.”

Ohio now has some of the country’s most stringent photo ID requirements for voters. You can’t present a student ID from a public university at the polls. Or an out-of-state driver’s license. Or an expired driver’s license or passport. Since the state made these changes in 2023, more than 8,000 Ohioans have attempted to vote and had their ballots rejected because they didn’t present an acceptable ID. 

But what counts as an “acceptable ID” varies greatly across Appalachia. Tennessee, Ohio, and South Carolina don’t allow student IDs from public universities. North Carolina does, but unlike Georgia or Mississippi, it doesn’t allow driver’s licenses that have been expired for more than a year — unless you’re 65 and older and your ID was unexpired on your 65th birthday. 

And several Appalachian states don’t accept driver’s licenses from other states — including Tennessee. This requirement frequently confuses voters, according to Christie Campion, a former poll worker from Knoxville. Home to the state’s flagship university, the Appalachian city of just under 200,000 is full of college kids, including thousands of out-of-state students. 

Campion remembers having to give a provisional ballot to a college student who came to vote with a Maryland driver’s license. Although she recommended the student obtain a Tennessee driver’s license, she recognized that the process of making it to the DMV is burdensome in itself. 

“It’s a whole effort to go and get the ID, and then you go to try and get the ID, and they’re like ‘Oh you brought the wrong piece of paper. You have to come back later,’” Campion said. “I think being so restrictive on what counts as ID is just an attempt at suppression.” 

Research from the University of Maryland found that younger voters, Black voters and Latino voters are much less likely to have a driver’s license with their current name and address — or any driver’s license at all. And studies show there is virtually no fraud taking place that could be prevented through photo ID requirements, said University of Kentucky law professor Josh Douglas via email. 

“Overall, studies show that both​ sides embellish the debate a little,” said Douglas, who specializes in election law and advised on Kentucky’s voter ID legislation. “ID laws don't improve integrity, but the amount of disenfranchisement is typically somewhat small — ​though again, that depends on the specifics of the ID law and how strict they are.”

Kentucky’s photo ID requirements are relatively lenient, compared to other Appalachian states, but lawmakers recently tried making things more stringent. State senators passed a bill early this year that would’ve removed university-issued ID cards as a primary document for voter identification. The bill never made it out of House committees. 

University IDs are also under scrutiny in nearby North Carolina. There, the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee sued the State Board of Elections, seeking to prevent the use of digital university IDs from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A superior court judge initially denied their request, but just last Friday, a North Carolina appeals court blocked the use of the mobile UNC One Card. 

The North Carolina Republican Party and the RNC have also recently filed several other lawsuits, including one seeking to revoke the voter registrations of more than 225,000 North Carolinians. 

‘We want everybody to be as informed as they can’ 

North Carolina isn’t the only Appalachian state shaking things up at the last second. In late September, the Georgia State Election Board passed a controversial rule requiring all voting precincts to count ballots by hand on Election Day and ensure the tallies match machine counts. Back in Ohio, days after he suggested banning ballot drop boxes entirely, Secretary of State Frank LaRose issued a new directive in early September, limiting their use. 

Now, if someone delivers an elderly or disabled voter’s ballot to a drop box, they have to physically enter the county board of elections office and sign a form. County board of elections officials have expressed concerns that this will create longer lines on Election Day. 

But amid a flurry of proposed and enacted changes, multiple organizations working on turnout in Appalachian Ohio aren’t sharing their personal opinions regarding voter ID. They’re too busy sharing information with voters. 

“I think our biggest concern when it went into effect was this education piece, ” said Adriane Mohlenkamp, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Athens County. “We were hoping to see some statewide wide-scale education efforts, and I know there's been some efforts around education, but it has not been maybe as robust as we would’ve hoped for.”

Lack of education is a big issue when it comes to voter ID. Fifty-five percent of people living in states with photo ID requirements either think they aren’t in place or don’t know if they are, according to research from the University of Maryland. Among voters aged 18 to 29, nearly 66 percent aren’t sure if photo ID is required — a particular concern in Athens County, home to more than 21,000 students attending Ohio University. 

Over the past several months, Mohlenkamp and the rest of her team have registered plenty of college students — and voters of all ages. They’ve written letters to the editor, posted on Facebook, done interviews with local newspapers and distributed non-partisan voter information cards at libraries. 

And on Ohio University’s campus, students are running their own initiatives to get their peers to the polls. In his capacity as the Student Senate’s Governmental Affairs Commissioner, sophomore Donald Theisen and his senators have spent hours passing out registration forms, preparing slideshows and participating in election-related events, including a recent debate watch party. Theisen wouldn't share his personal opinions on changes to Ohio election law. But he’s feeling pretty optimistic about Election Day. 

“My job is to represent everybody on the campus regardless of how they may feel — whether they may lean left or right, whether they support or disavow the most recent changes to the law,” Theisen said. “Our job is to get everybody engaged in the process, trying to get it so that everybody can be registered and vote as easily as possible. We want everybody to be as informed as they can, and I think that the turnout at OU is gonna be pretty good.” 

The post Across Appalachia, Photo ID Requirements Complicate Voting appeared first on 100 Days in Appalachia.

KERMIT — Jim Webb stands under an awning with produce and jars of sauce lined up on a card table on the side of U.S. Route 52. Webb is a natural salesman – he touts a bottle of barbeque sauce for a limited time only, on account of the lady who made it dying before passing her recipe on. 

Webb, 88, said he might be the oldest man in town. Another gentleman died last week at the age of 92. From his produce stand, he points across the railroad tracks at a gas plant.

“My great-grandfather owned all that property, sold it for $300. That was before my time,” he said. “Now my grandfather retired out of there and had some uncles who did too. They made out pretty good.” 

When the coal trains ran through town every 25 minutes, Webb owned a couple of supermarkets and some other businesses. 

Now, everywhere Webb points, everywhere he recalls, is gone. It’s either been torn down, fallen in, or just turned into something else.

When Webb was born in the 1930s, Mingo County was still growing in population, spurred on by the coal industry. By the time he was a young man in the 1950s, the county had nearly 50,000. Seventy years later, the latest census shows less than half remain. But poverty has ballooned. A little more than a quarter of the residents in the county live below the poverty line and nearly 40% of all children do too. 

When asked by Mountain State Spotlight what he wants to hear candidates talk about in the upcoming election, Webb laughs – he’s served as mayor, councilman and even sheriff at one point. 

“I don’t believe any of them. They’ll tell you anything,” he said. 

With a population around 300, Kermit sits on the northern edge of Mingo County along the Big Sandy River, across from Kentucky. This area is coal country — next to a pawn shop selling revolvers and leaf blowers is the meeting hall for the United Mine Workers local. 

The town was foisted into the spotlight a few years ago when it was revealed millions of painkillers had flooded the community. 

The current mayor, Charles Sparks, was one of the first mayors in the state to file a lawsuit against Big Pharma. Sitting in his office, wearing a pocket t-shirt and a pair of sunglasses on his head, Sparks said he gave interviews to about 16 different reporters, from as far away as Germany. 

“I actually got to the point where I quit doing it because you’re just beating a dead horse at this point,” he said. 

Despite all that attention, all those reports, Sparks said his town is only getting $40,000 out of the settlements with drug companies. He had hopes of building a new community center, a splash pad for the kids and a substation for the fire house, on the other side of the railroad tracks that divides the town. 

“Everytime you go to court, it was Kermit this, Kermit that, Kermit’s the epicenter,” he said. “But when it was all said and done, we got the shaft.” 

Today, drugs aren’t the top of mind for Sparks — it’s the drought. The Big Sandy, which supplies water for the town, is the lowest he’s seen in years. 

“We’re not out of water and we’re not expected to be, but we’re prepared,” he said. 

Despite the problems, Sparks said he has a bit of hope for tourism growth – and that hope comes in the form of dust kicking, engine revving, tire squealing side-by-side riders on the Hatfield-McCoy Trails. 

“I think that could be a good opportunity – it could be a blessing, it could be a curse. I don’t know yet,” he said. 

Investing in state attractions could cause tourism boon

Just a few miles up U.S. 52 in Wayne County, business owners are already competing for tourism dollars, thanks to the large tracts of public land that attract fishermen, hunters, off-roaders and nature lovers. 

For the time being, that’s pretty much the only sector people there can hop onto immediately according to David Lieving, executive director of the county Economic Development Authority.

While the northern portion of Wayne has industry and easy access for goods and services by boat, rail, air or truck, a 20-minute ride south towards Kermit is a different county, he noted. 

And Lieving said that’s mostly due to infrastructure. Most of U.S. 52 is still a two lane road. That’s all supposed to change with the completion of the King Coal Highway and Tolsia Highway which would expand the road to four lanes and link I-77 with I-64, cutting through the southern coalfields. 

But the projects have been on the books since the 1990s, and the Wayne end is not anywhere close to being finished. 

About 30 miles north of Kermit in Wayne County, Joe Bofo stands at the check-in desk at the Rustic Ravines, a cabin resort destination atop a ridge in Genoa. Outside are cabins and yurts, a bar and restaurant, a zip line, archery targets and most important of all, trails. 

The resort is strategically located for ATV riders to tackle both the Hatfield-McCoy Trails and the “outlaw” trails found at the East Lynn Wildlife Management area. 

Bofo doesn’t sound like he’s from Wayne. His accent has a twinge of northeast, mixed with midwest with a sprinkling of Appalachian. He’s from Brooke County originally and spent a portion of his childhood in Columbus, Ohio. 

Bofo looked at Wayne County, with two wildlife management areas, a state forest and a spur of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails, and saw potential. So in 2017-2018, he went in with a buddy of his and started building Rustic Ravines. 

The resort gets reservations from all over the United States. 

While giving an interview, Bofo takes a reservation from a large Ukrainian family living in Cleveland that comes every Thanksgiving and rents the whole place out for a week, riding ATVs and cooking up traditional fare from the old country. 

Setting up shop in Wayne went remarkably well, Bofo said. 

The Department of Highways paved the road all the way to his business, a few miles from state Route 152. The county worked with him to get water service. Some Abandoned Mine Land grants from the federal government also helped out – and he hopes to get more. 

But one thing Bofo thinks could help the area – and possibly turn it into a tourism mecca along the lines of the New River Gorge – is investment in state attractions along Route 152, from Huntington to Crum and beyond. 

And the way Bofo figures it, the state could fund it with those hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue surpluses the Governor has touted over the last several years. 

Managing education among a declining population 

Down the hill from the resort, Jessica Cornett walks through the side door of the Country Boy Market with her son, who is ready for ice cream after a day at Genoa Elementary. Cornett, a native of Eastern Kentucky, has owned the store for about eight years, but it has been open for nearly 40 years in total. 

Business over the years has ebbed and flowed. She said more people did their grocery shopping there during COVID-19, when they got assistance in the form of food stamps. 

She gets business from the riders coming from Bofo’s resort, but it varies. Right now, people are strapped from back-to-school shopping. 

Sometimes customers ask her to open at 5 a.m., like back in the day when coal miners would come through before their shifts. But there just aren’t that many miners anymore, she said. 

“I think people have just moved away to where there’s jobs,” she said. “People thrived on coal, and it’s just not around anymore.”

But there’s a silver lining with the lack of people. Cornett said her son can get individual attention at his school, with only seven kids in his class. 

“I came from bigger schools, so I never experienced that, but it works,” she said. “If one of them fell behind, there was always somebody there to help get them back on track.” 

For Wayne County Superintendent Todd Alexander, maintaining those schools can be tricky with the population decline. Lower population means smaller student bodies, and state funding for schools is tied to the amount of students enrolled.

He said a few years ago, there was a proposal to combine Genoa with Dunlow Elementary about 20 minutes down the road. The school board decided against it. 

“You got to keep an eye on it,” he said. “If we continue to lose enrollment across the district, then we’ll have to look at that again.” 

Down in Dunlow, Bill Likens raises up a platform on a forklift so a man can change a light inside the town’s community center. 

This portion of the center is a warehouse, filled with clothes, food and other donated goods. For the last 21 years, Likens has been a director of this outreach ministry, sponsored by the Cabwaylingo Appalachian Mission. He is a self-described “poor boy from Dunlow.” He spent his youth reading National Geographics at the school library. 

Likens said back then the coal mines were booming, but it wasn’t necessarily good. 

“People get all nostalgic about that, saying it was great then, but it wasn’t,” he said. “You did have more jobs. You had two big mines in Wayne County that employed about 500 people, and another 500 on the side with truck drivers, but other than that, there’s always been nothing here.” 

Just a few miles up Coal Haul Road, past the pavement slipping down the hillside, is one of those mines, shuttered since 2013. All that’s left is some equipment and a couple of guys keeping an eye on things. 

For the people who are left – many of them senior citizens – Likens said it can be tough. During a monthly food distribution, he estimates about 500 people,  mostly elderly, come through for food. 

And it’s not just them. The afterschool program put on by the ministry has about 70 kids come, where they can get a snack and have time to play. 

The ministry also works with other organizations to build houses for people in need – that afternoon, Likens was going to install cabinets in a home. 

But for the people here, just a few miles from the trailhead of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails, Likens said getting basic services, like water and broadband, is still a struggle. For those without cars, getting anywhere – to the doctor, to the grocery store – is a challenge, he said. 

“There’s a lot of young people who want to do stuff like go to school or get a job,” he said. “If they don’t have transportation, they can’t go do that.” 

“It’s pretty rough right now,” he added. 

Southern Wayne and northern Mingo have been hit hard by the decline of coal. For the people left, it’s a struggle to move forward.  appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

In between shifts at low-income jobs, West Virginians in natural gas country braved the late August heat and lined up at a New Martinsville church in Wetzel County to pick up canned food, frozen meat and back-to-school clothing. Some drove more than an hour to get there. 

Grandparents with custody of their grandchildren, single mothers and people making barely above minimum wage waited their turn to choose from racks of clothes, and a team of about 20 volunteers provided them with lists of other charities that can help.

Since the food pantry opened four years ago, the need has only grown, according to Tina Rucker, who runs it. It serves nearly 1,000 people a month. 

“People are working at McDonald’s, at Wendy’s, Burger King – that can’t make it,” she said. “They make too much to get help from the state. And if it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t be able to feed their families.”

Natural gas companies like Antero and EQT, major oil and gas companies in the region, donate about a third of program costs, Rucker said. 

When the natural gas industry boomed, residents in the area had expected a surge in good-paying jobs. Instead, they’re increasingly reliant on charity.

More than a decade ago, natural gas companies sold West Virginians on a bright and prosperous future with tens of thousands of new jobs. Companies have pulled billions of dollars of natural gas out of the ground, yet many people here still can’t afford basic necessities like food and clothing.  

The American Petroleum Institute, the trade group representing the nation’s oil and natural gas industry, promoted the predicted job growth and didn’t answer inquiries about why it didn’t take place. EQT and Antero also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In recent years, state officials also said West Virginia was on the verge of what they called a petrochemical renaissance based on plastics developed from natural gas liquids. 

They described a hopeful future for the state, which they said would include the construction of multiple facilities needed to use byproducts of natural gas for the development of plastics. That plan has largely failed. 

“West Virginians enjoy significant economic and environmental benefits thanks to the development and use of our homegrown natural gas and oil,” said Charlie Burd, executive director of the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, when touting the release of a report last year showing more than 70,000 jobs in the state from the gas industry. 

Analysts have cautioned against using that number to determine the industry’s economic impact because it includes indirect jobs like employment at oil refineries and gas stations.

As the industry matures, there are fewer and fewer jobs in the industry, according to reports authored by Sean O’Leary, senior energy researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute. The natural gas producing areas of the state have generated a lot of wealth for companies and some residents, but that is not reflected in average incomes and number of jobs. 

“Generally speaking, the effects on economic prosperity were negligible to downright negative,” said O’Leary.

Population and job loss instead of prosperity

At the Wetzel County Museum, Nathaniel McDowell pointed toward a rendering of a bustling, brightly-lit New Martinsville as it looked decades ago hanging on the wall. Standing next to a display that said “A County is Born,” he said people settled in the town because of nearby gas drilling. 

“This town used to be a very prideful town,” he said. “There were picnics. There were parades out in the street. Everybody knew everybody. Now we’re faceless.”

McDowell, who works at the museum, was wearing an Oil and Gas Festival shirt, one of many community activities that natural gas companies sponsor. But he also talked about how a century ago, oil and gas executives frequented and opened other local businesses. 

“Yeah, they pay you a lot, but none of that goes to the towns,” he said. “None of it gets recycled back into the economy.” 

McDowell also watched many of his high school classmates leave the area. 

As Appalachian natural gas has contributed more and more to the nation’s economy over the last 15 years, people in the counties where it is produced aren’t reaping the same benefits, according to a 2021 report by the Ohio River Valley Institute. Researchers looked at economic data from 22 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that produce most Appalachian natural gas.

From 2008 to 2019, income and jobs grew slower in the natural gas counties than both the nation and the combined three states. Population declined by 3.8% in those counties.

Over the course of the natural gas boom, jobs were created but have since declined. Incomes have fallen further behind the rest of the nation, and population loss has worsened in these counties, according to a 2023 update of that report. 

West Virginia counties included in the report were Doddridge, Harrison, Marshall, Ohio, Ritchie, Tyler and Wetzel, located in the natural gas-rich Appalachian Basin.

Technological advances allowed natural gas producers to drill much farther horizontally underground, reaching greater gas reserves. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, pumps huge amounts of water, sand and chemicals underground to free gas from shale deposits.

“Once wells are dug, they don’t require the same amount of attention that they do when they’re being drilled,” O’Leary said.

In New Martinsville, McDowell said he’s seen local businesses struggle because many natural gas jobs went to out-of-state workers, who only stayed for short periods of time.

Many people who owned the rights to natural gas drilled on their land either sold those rights or receive royalty payments, based on a percentage of the revenue from the drilling. Some became wealthy.

But companies said that money would be spent locally. O’Leary said local land-owner royalties largely went to paying down debts, saving the money or making one-time large purchases.

“They might have gone out and bought a car or even a house in Myrtle Beach,” he said. 

A missed opportunity

A 2010 press release from the American Petroleum Institute said West Virginia had a “challenging tax and regulatory climate.” So, companies did slightly hedge their expectations. They said state lawmakers would have to stay out of their way. 

Those lawmakers did. In fact, they rolled out the red carpet by acquiescing to the industry time after time at the state Legislature. 

Among other measures, they rejected plans to require companies to report the number of in-state workers. They also rejected protections for mineral-rights owners and residents who live near drilling operations and worry about the associated pollution. 

Lawmakers have also continued to reject legislation to require companies to clean up abandoned wells that can release the greenhouse gas methane.

But state officials missed opportunities to prepare for the future by planning only to ride the coattails of the industry, according to O’Leary.

“Frankly, a lot of them just stopped looking at or stopped thinking about other ways to do economic development,” O’Leary said. “And so there was a huge opportunity loss associated with the natural gas boom, because folks simply assumed that it would be the savior.”

In the early 2010s, Jeff Kessler, a former Democratic state Senate president and gubernatorial candidate, advocated for a fund made up of taxes from the natural gas industry. He’d said lawmakers would only be permitted to use interest generated by this Future Fund, so it would grow over time. 

Kessler said the Future Fund was meant for investments, like training for trade jobs or infrastructure. Other states, including Wyoming, New Mexico and North Dakota have similar funds, giving officials billions of tax dollars from the extraction of natural resources to reinvest in their states. 

“When the coal’s gone and the gas is gone, there’d be a source of significant wealth built up to help advance services and programs that improve the quality of life for the people who live here, not for the damn companies that have made all the money and left us,” he said. 

But because other lawmakers successfully pushed to include restrictive requirements for depositing money into the fund, no money was ever deposited. Then the Future Fund was repealed last year. 

Kessler said lawmakers could have preserved some of the proceeds for residents left behind and the revitalization of towns once the wells were drilled in the region.

“I think they got bamboozled some,” Kessler said.

Sen. Charles Clements, R-Wetzel said despite fewer than predicted new jobs, some residents  improved their quality of life.  

“And I’ve seen people that just didn’t have anything, then all of a sudden, they run into a lot of money, but a lot of people never changed their lifestyle,” he said. “They put the money in the bank, and it’s probably still sitting there. Their kids are going to be happy maybe someday.”

Clements said that initially many jobs went to out-of-state workers, partly because people were reluctant to move from their hometowns to other counties.

He also said that, since then, local residents have picked up new skills and have taken some of those jobs.

Some schools, especially those in outlier counties like Doddridge County, have reaped the benefit, he said, and are receiving more funding per student than the rest of the state.

Some roads are patched up, but damage is done

The explosion in drilling did bring some improvements. Jobs grew at a faster rate in Doddridge County than in the rest of West Virginia. That county has been able to use taxes from the industry to build schools, a new courthouse annex and an upgraded public library.

And in New Martinsville, the Wetzel County Center for Children and Families is freshly painted due to help from natural gas companies that also sponsor many of their programs for low- income residents. The center has a clothing closet and group activities for kids.

In roads close to towns like New Martinsville in Wetzel County and West Union in Doddridge County, potholes have been patched. 

But farther out on more narrow roads, there is warning tape cautioning drivers because pieces of the heavily-trafficked road are falling off the hillside.

And along the highway in Doddridge County, a massive natural gas processing complex replaced rolling hills and trees. 

Clements said lawmakers have allocated highway funding, and he said some residents don’t realize the companies paid for road repairs as well.

“And they’ve been very generous with charities,” he said. “Of course, they’re making an awful lot of money.”

The natural gas boom was supposed to bring prosperity to West Virginians in poverty. That didn’t happen appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

WEBSTER SPRINGS — During the pandemic, Michelle Bell opened the Dandelion Boutique, a shop in Webster County where she sold a collection of flowy sundresses, floppy sun hats and denim jeans.

But she steadily lost customers to online retailers, forcing her to close up shop on a snowy day in February, less than four years after she opened. 

Like other small business owners in Webster County, where opportunities are scarce, Bell knew giving up was an option, but she decided to move forward.

“Around here, jobs aren’t plentiful, so people do what they have to do to survive,” she said. 

A few months after the boutique’s closure, Bell and a business partner transformed an empty, grease-stained auto shop into The Groovy Mushroom, a smoke shop with an array of products from flashy vapes and hemp-derived products to custom incense holders and car air fresheners. 

Many businesses have closed, county officials said. Those that remain have either relocated or rebranded in an attempt to survive.

Residents of Webster County say they feel overlooked and forgotten as neighboring counties attract more investments and jobs, leaving Webster County behind. The county has one of the highest rates of unemployment at 7%, compared to 4.2% statewide.   

“My firm belief is that the state has to start with its poorest counties,” said Chris Graham, director of the Webster County Economic Development Authority. “I just keep seeing money going to the panhandle. Little counties like us, we always seem to be at the last of the list.”

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This story is part of Mountain State Spotlight’s initiative to ask West Virginians in all 55 counties what they want to hear from candidates as they ask for votes. In communities from Kingwood to Hamlin to Chloe, residents have said they want candidates to talk about how to create more good-paying jobs.

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As the county’s first and only smoke shop, The Groovy Mushroom sees a steady stream of daily customers. But Bell, who also sits on the county economic development authority’s board, said she recognizes that other businesses in the area are not so lucky. 

“Small businesses need help right now,” she said. “I’m one of the fortunate ones who could do what I did because when businesses die, people just move on.”

Compared to more populous counties, Webster struggles with a lack of interstate access, poor water infrastructure and fewer customers. 

County officials said they’ve also seen a decline in timber jobs as lumber prices have plummeted. With most of the county heavily forested, timber companies were once the largest employers. 

Webster County has a population of around 8,000, but residents say people keep leaving in search of better jobs, hurting the local economy. Since 2010, the county has lost over 1,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census. 

“I grew up here, but things have changed — there’s no economy here anymore,” said Travis Giles, a lifelong resident. “There’s no coal mines, there’s no jobs, there’s nothing, so people have left.”

Giles said he tries to shop locally but has found it difficult as more shops are closing. He now drives at least half an hour to Buckhannon or Summersville to buy groceries.  

With fewer businesses like family-owned grocery stores and boutiques, demand for gathering places like bars and restaurants has decreased. 

Bryan Moore closed his bar six years ago after business stagnated. He said he relied on local customers, but most either moved away or passed away. Shortly after closing the bar, he opened the Springs Sandwich Shop in Webster Springs. 

There, visitors can buy hot paninis with a choice of pickles or chips and an ice-cold drink on the side. He’s now relying on tourists passing through town for revenue and said the shop has seen an uptick in visitors every year. 

“We have our good months and we have our bad months,” Moore said. “The most impact has been transient business from Snowshoe in the wintertime.”

As the local population dwindles, some small businesses are focusing on tourists. Like many places in West Virginia, county officials are turning to tourism to jumpstart the economy and combat slow business growth. 

“I think outdoor recreation is where we’re missing the boat, largely because we have beautiful mountains and we have the best rivers,” said Alex Fliegel, director of the county’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. “There’s just not many businesses or tax dollars being spent specifically around that.”

Her office markets the county to attract visitors but relies mostly on hotel and motel taxes for funding. In Webster County, there are not enough places to stay, limiting both tourism growth and funding for the office. 

To help officials grow the county’s economy and tourism, Fliegel reached out to the nonprofit West Virginia Community Development Hub. As part of the Accelerate WV program, she’s working with Graham to create a county-wide economic development plan. 

In the plan, they are sketching out sustainable projects like biking and ATV trails, and once it is completed, hope it makes the county more attractive to investors and grant funders. Officials have hosted community listening sessions and expect to complete the plan next year.

Back at the smoke shop, Bell said she could see Webster Springs growing to become a place like Lewisburg or Fayetteville, where tourism is key to the local economy. She said the county EDA has ambitious plans like building a county-wide rail biking trail and connecting it to other counties to bring visitors. 

“I care about my community, and I care where it goes and the future of it,” she said. “ We have people coming from all over to come here, we just need them to stay for a little while.” 

As Webster County businesses shutter, residents feel they’ve been left behind by the state appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

In 2017, when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declared the electoral system “critical infrastructure,” state and local election officials around the country were forced to take cybersecurity much more seriously. And it wasn’t long before physical threats and misinformation also became a greater concern. 

In North Carolina, state board of elections director Karen Brinson Bell said the DHS’s designation “didn’t take anything off her plate.” Instead, the responsibilities of election officials like her only grew, especially in battleground states like North Carolina.

In the lead up to this year’s election, Brinson Bell said “everything is a concern” when it comes to election security. Like her counterparts across the region, she’s especially focused on cybersecurity, preventing physical threats and battling misinformation around the elections process, while communicating to voters that the electoral system in North Carolina is actually safe and secure. 

“We had to become much more adept at telling our story, being accessible to the public, helping them understand what is really a complex, methodical, multilayer process in all that we do,” Brinson Bell said. “And it’s not soundbite friendly.”

Other states in the region like Pennsylvania, which was at the center of the 2020 election denial campaign and is considered a “must-win” for both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race, are also confronting the same concerns as North Carolina. 

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania launched a task force focused on election threats like misinformation related to the adoption of new voting systems and no-excuse mail-in voting.  

“In recent years, we’ve seen bad-faith actors attempt to exploit these changes by spreading lies and baseless conspiracy theories, and attempting to delegitimize our safe, secure and accurate elections,” said Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt in a February news release. “This task force has been working together to develop and coordinate plans to combat this dangerous misinformation and continue providing all eligible voters with accurate, trusted election information.”

2020 Hindsight

Many election officials didn’t have a plan for handling the 2020 presidential election fallout, Brinson Bell said. From protests fueled by misinformation and lawsuits seeking to overturn the results, states like Georgia and Pennsylvania were mired in controversy, and North Carolina was “just on the bubble” of facing the same issues. 

“For North Carolina, we have to think about, what can we learn from those states?” Brinson Bell said. “It’s unfortunate what they went through, but it’s unfortunate if we don’t learn from it.” 

In North Carolina, according to one recent poll, nearly 50% of those who responded said they won’t believe the results of the election.  

One major focus for Brinson Bell is making sure that voters understand the election process and how it actually operates — even promoting physical transparency at the county level, like urging election staff to use clear plastic tubs with labels to store ballots instead of recycled cardboard boxes. 

“That’s not election jargon,” Brinson Bell said, “but it’s something clear to the public.” 

Now, Georgia, another battleground state in the region, is mired in controversy surrounding its state election board, which recently approved new rules that critics believe will “sow confusion, compromise ballot security and potentially enable rogue county boards to block certification of election results in November,” according to reporting by the Washington Post.  

Later this month, the board is scheduled to vote on whether to require counties to count ballots by hand at each precinct, which critics believe could produce inaccurate results and be less secure. 

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger described the election board as “a mess,” and told the Washington Post, “Legal precedent is pretty clear. You shouldn’t change rules in the middle of an election.” 

Physical Security, New Rules and Turnover

Elections officials are also working to boost physical security in the lead-up to the election. 

In North Carolina, Brinson Bell said workers are securing doors and installing panic buttons at county elections offices. Staff are also being trained in de-escalation techniques to counter voter intimidation and other physical threats. Earlier this year, Georgia passed an election security law requiring police to take a one-hour class on election laws, which also included training in de-escalation, though the new law doesn’t go into effect until 2025. 

In North Carolina, a 2023 voter identification law will be in effect for this year’s election and photo ID will be required. Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and Ohio also have strict photo ID requirements for voting.

Staff turnover, specifically county election directors, has been another concern of Brinson Bell, who earlier this summer said more than 60% of county election directors have left their post since 2019. For many of the replacements, she said, this will be their first presidential election. 

“While there’s much that’s the same processes and routines, the volume, the intense scrutiny and being a battleground state with so many high profile contests on our ballot this year, it’s just a different environment to be a new director,” Brinson Bell said.  

Urban-Rural Divide

It’s not just Appalachia’s battleground states taking election security seriously. Other states in the region are also working to combat misinformation and thwart physical and cybersecurity threats.

Deak Kersey, chief deputy and chief of staff for the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office, said the state has focused on cybersecurity since DHS’s critical infrastructure designation went into effect. 

“West Virginia was not in a great spot eight years ago,” Kersey said. “Nobody knew what cybersecurity really was, as far as the Feds really considered it.” 

Since then, the state has pushed to disperse Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, funds to counties, which have used the funds to update voting equipment, like purchasing new ballot-marking equipment that’s ADA accessible and electronic poll books. In August, the state election commission approved sending nearly $1 million in HAVA funds to 24 counties. 

DHS also awarded $1 million to North Carolina this year, but the money can’t be spent until the state’s General Assembly authorizes it. If and when it does, then the state elections office will have to decide whether to disperse it between counties or keep some of it at the state level to continue funding a statewide cybersecurity expert to monitor for doxing, denial-of-service attacks, phishing schemes and other online threats.  

“I don’t mean to make light of a million dollars, but that doesn’t go far in a state with 100 counties,” Brinson Bell said.

The funding issues hit especially hard in the state’s rural counties.

“I think some of the concerns in Western North Carolina really are reflective of sort of that rural-urban divide in North Carolina — the economically distressed counties versus those that are prospering more,” Brinson Bell said. 

It’s a concern across Appalachia, where most of the region is rural. And while federal funding will help, elections officials have less than two months left before the election to see how far it will go to update equipment, implement new security measures and hire new people to replace outgoing directors.

The post In Appalachia’s Battleground States, Election Officials Worry About Cyber Security, Physical Threats and Misinformation appeared first on 100 Days in Appalachia.