On May 14, West Virginia voters will go to the polls for the state’s primary election. Nearly 1,800 people are running for elected office here, and while positions like U.S. Senator and West Virginia Governor have been sucking up a lot of the air over the past few months, there are a lot of lower-profile races that are just as important. Those include races for the state’s 30 judicial circuits and county positions like prosecuting attorney and board of education members.

But a shocking number of these races aren’t really races at all. For many elected offices, West Virginia votes will simply have no choices.

Maybe we already knew this. But over the last few months it’s become even more clear, as I once again spent days going through ballots and websites and Facebook pages to create Mountain State Spotlight’s 2024 primary election voter guide.

Two years ago, I lobbied hard to create the first iteration of this comprehensive guide to answer one simple question for West Virginian voters: Who’s on my ballot? While this information is publicly available, it’s not always user-friendly. Our gamble in 2022 was that there were a lot of West Virginians who wanted a preview of who was running for office, as well as a few basic ways to research them like campaign websites and social media pages. 

We were right, and about 20% of the people who cast a ballot in that election consulted one or more pages of that voter guide.

So, we did it again this year. I went through every statewide, district, county and many municipal elections and tried to track down information about the candidates. We wanted voters to know their choices, to help them make informed decisions.

But West Virginians have few options in so many of these races. 

Many state and county races will be decided in the primaries (if there’s a decision to be made at all)

There are 117 statehouse races on the ballot this year; in 50 of them, there are only candidates from one political party running. In almost all these cases, it’s only Republicans running for the seat. This means that only registered Republicans (and independent voters who ask for a Republican ballot) will get to make any kind of choice about who will ultimately represent them in the state House or Senate.

In many of these statehouse races, even people voting a Republican ballot don’t have much of a choice. In 32 of the races for legislative seats, there’s only one candidate running, period. That means for 32 of your elected representatives, the only hurdles to office are the bureaucratic tasks of paying a small filing fee ($100 for the House of Delegates and $200 for the State Senate) and filling out the required paperwork.

In counties, there are even fewer options. Take county prosecuting attorneys: Every county has one, and the seat is on the ballot in every county but Lincoln. But in 43 of those 54 prosecutor races —79%! — there is only one person running for the job. 

This isn’t a new problem, and it’s not unique to West Virginia.

During the 2016 election, 75% of West Virginia’s prosecuting attorney elections were uncontested, according to research by Carissa Byrne Hessick, a law professor at the University of North Carolina and the director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project. Across the country, she said the biggest factor in determining whether there’s more than one candidate running for the seat is population.

It makes sense: In order to run for prosecuting attorney, you have to be a lawyer. And not all lawyers even want to practice criminal law, like prosecutors do. So Hessick says in counties with smaller populations, the pool is pretty small.

“These small jurisdictions tend to have fewer lawyers, which is going to affect the number of people who are eligible to run for this office,” she said. 

This ends up making people less motivated to make the effort to vote, according to West Virginia University political science professor Bill Franko. 

“Less competition is going to lead to lower levels of voter turnout,” he said. “People are going to think their vote matters less, like ‘what’s the point if I turn out or not, this person is going to end up winning.’”

In many ways, this is a self-perpetuating cycle. Specifically for prosecuting attorney races, Hessick has found that media outlets don’t cover uncontested elections as often as they do contested ones, so people tend to be less aware of the position’s responsibilities and less likely to challenge an incumbent for the job. 

(These media outlets, by the way, totally include Mountain State Spotlight. We’ve had tough conversations about election stories, including focusing resources on contested races. But we have broader coverage planned for the months leading up to the general election in November, including a push to try to change the way we cover elections with our Citizen’s Agenda approach.)

Fewer choices means less competition and lower turnout

This lack of choices affects voter turnout more broadly, too. When candidates aren’t forced to compete for votes, they do less campaigning and voter outreach — activities that tend to give people more information about candidates and make them feel more comfortable voting. It also means that increasingly, West Virginia’s elected officials haven’t had to make the case for their election, or had to tell voters where they stand on important issues in the state. 

Ultimately, this lack of competition has consequences for West Virginians. 

Some research has shown that lawmakers who win their seats with no opposition were less likely to introduce bills and show up to vote than those who had to compete. And Franko’s research, which largely focuses on how economic inequality plays out in voting, has found that when voter turnout is down, the people who end up voting and influencing policies aren’t always representative of the population. 

“So what happens if you have fewer people from lower means backgrounds turning out in elections?” he asked. “What my work has found is that this ends up leading to less representation for those people when it comes to policy outcomes.” The overall result, in many cases, is that the laws that end up being passed aren’t beneficial for poorer West Virginians. 

As for prosecutors, Hessick says the result of this lack of competition isn’t quite as easy to see. But that in itself is part of the problem. 

Prosecutors generally have broad authority to decide what cases they want to prosecute, what types of crimes to charge people with, what kind of plea deals to offer. And unlike a lawmaker’s voting record, it’s much more difficult for a voter to get insight into how their elected prosecuting attorney is approaching law enforcement. 

“They have these incredibly consequential decisions that they have to make and we don’t even know what those decisions are,” Hessick said. “Even if you wanted to find out what decisions are being made, it’s incredibly hard to get your hands on this information.”

So, what’s the solution to getting more candidates for these positions, which could then increase campaigning, leading to more information and higher voter turnout? 

As far as prosecutors go, Hessick says one solution is creating larger prosecutorial districts, which could include grouping smaller counties together. That would create a larger potential pool of candidates vying for the position. 

Franko said the issues are hard to disentangle, but another solution is to make both voting and running for office easier — starting with asking people to do it. There are a lot of barriers to even casting a ballot, he said, and those are only magnified when you look at what’s needed to run for office.

“Are people asking you to vote? Is someone trying to get you to turn out to vote? Do you have the resources to try to understand the process and navigate? Apply that to running for office,” he said. “You need resources. You need to be able to navigate the process. Are people asking you to run for office? Same thing, but even harder.”

He noted that some countries have increased voter turnout by having fewer elections, like making sure that city and state elections appear on the same ballot as national races. West Virginia officials could also increase the number of voters who end up weighing in on nonpartisan races — for critical positions like judgeships and board of education members — by moving that election to the November ballot, where the general election turnout is typically nearly double the primary. 

None of these potential solutions will change West Virginia’s candidate pool overnight. But every West Virginia voter’s ballot does include a couple of races with choices.

There are three candidates vying for a single seat on the West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals, and this is voters’ first chance to pick a judge for this newly-formed court.

And, in many counties, Board of Education races are contested. These are the people who will decide what and how our kids learn — and they are nonpartisan contests that will be decided on Tuesday.

Polls are open on May 14 from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. And our voter guide is right here to help.

Thousands of West Virginia voters lack choices on their ballots. Here are the consequences of uncontested elections appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

As a queer and gender-nonconforming person navigating life in a region deeply entrenched in Christianity, I find myself straddling two worlds. While I don’t hold any religious beliefs, I cannot deny the profound impact that Appalachian and Deep Southern Christianity have on the queer experience. Not only is religion pitted against the queer community by the government through legislation, but by our neighbors. 

I’m from Huntington, West Virginia, in the “Bible Belt” where it is understandable to avoid Christianity or Catholicism completely as a member of the LBGTQ+ community. In the form of reclamation, I use the iconography and symbolism of these religions not in contrast but in tandem with queerness. While anti-trans laws are being introduced daily, fostering connections between our community and classically Appalachian roots is more pertinent than ever. We have to work to better our home for the future and ourselves.  

As a photographer, I am drawn to exploring the intersections of identity, spirituality, and bodies. My circle of friends, who are predominantly queer and trans individuals, provide solace and inspiration in a society that often fails us. 

In this photo series, I aim to capture the essence of our shared experiences as trans and queer individuals within the context of Appalachia. Along with these positives, it is also necessary to show the loneliness of this experience. Each subject in this series represents a unique expression of gender and/or sexuality. 

Using the symbolism of rebirth, community connection, and the search for answers outside oneself inherent in the Appalachian Christian tradition, I strive to create images that resonate with both our journeys and the broader narrative of this region. The river as a symbol of baptism and ceremony is the backbone of this series. From ceremonial washings to great floods, the power of water is undeniable. Through editing, these photos have grain and lens flares creating a look of being lost to time. 

The post Photo Essay: Exploring Trans and Queer Identity through Appalachian, Christian Iconography appeared first on 100 Days in Appalachia.

The impacts of climate change are steadily and exponentially being felt here in Appalachia just as they have across the globe, and environmental activists, scientists and outdoor enthusiasts alike find themselves in a race to counter the climate curve in the region. 

The discussions in some communities, however, have shifted to predicting what long-term effects climate change will have on outdoor recreation that, in many places, has supported a changing economy and how our communities can cope. 

Appalachia’s varied topography provides opportunities for outdoor recreation year-round – more than 3 million people section-hike the Appalachian Trail each year. And according to the Outdoor Industry Association 2023 report, West Virginia’s recreation sector in particular is responsible for $660 million in tax revenue and 91,000 jobs. Tennessee’s numerous recreation options brought in nearly $12 billion in 2022 with over 38 million people visiting the state’s 57 parks. 

Protecting the outdoors is an environmental investment, but one that is likely to also secure Applachia’s economic health. 

Extreme Weather Is Already Impacting Recreation

Last year’s outdoor season provided a powerful and unnerving snapshot of the future, foreshadowing Appalachia’s outdoor challenges for the decades ahead. 

In early July, catastrophic flooding and landslides from extraordinary rainfall created a State of Emergency in our region’s northernmost New York counties, closing parts of the Appalachian Trail. Some thru-hikers were stranded and diverted, encouraged to prioritize safety by bypassing that section of the trail entirely. 

Across southern Appalachia, late August brought searing triple-digit temperatures. This record-breaking heat wave arrived much later than typically seen and health warnings kept would-be recreationists confined to their homes during the normal onset of peak outdoor season. 

Intense smoke from last summer’s Canadian wildfires spread deep into Central Appalachia, covering the region in a thick haze that significantly degraded air quality. These plumes of smoke send greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, smothering the skies with dangerous emissions that negatively affect our community’s health and recreation.

2023 also went down in history as one of Central Appalachia’s most widespread wildfire seasons due to abnormally warm and dry fall weather. In West Virginia, more than 32,000 acres of forest burned, including a major blaze in November at the New River Gorge National Park, permanently altering the landscape of one of America’s most popular rock climbing destinations. 

The Projected Risks for the Region

As we approach mid-century, some of Appalachia’s southern cities are predicted to be among the most drought-burdened in the country, while neighbors in the north will regularly see a greater frequency of unprecedented flooding. The health of our communities could be impacted by rising rates of tick and mosquito-borne diseases and an elongated allergy season. 

These compiling risks over the next few decades will require recreationists to maintain awareness and use extra precautions while navigating the outdoors. And it’s all attributed to rising temperatures.

“Minimum surface air temperatures are projected to continue increasing across the region,” said Dr. Karen King, assistant professor of Geography at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. “A less obvious, but just as impactful consequence of warmer minimum temperatures is the reduction in overwinter mortality of invasive pests, which cause substantial harm to us and our recreational spaces.”

Leisure spaces used for hiking, biking and climbing will also suffer from the onslaught of heavy rainfall. Trails and their associated infrastructure, like bridges and shelters, could be impaired by rockfall and damaged by erosion. This particularly affects those that border some of the region’s most picturesque waterways, like West Virginia’s New River, one of the oldest rivers in the world.  

“In some cases, the most scenic is not always the most sustainable,” said Hawk Metheny, vice president of trail management at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. “If you have an area that’s susceptible to erosion, it’s magnified exponentially – instead of the natural rate of erosion that occurs, you can experience multi-years in just days.”

Other forecasted downsides of impending temperature increases include reduced snowfall in the north and irrigation concerns in the south. Lack of winter precipitation will constrain activities like skiing, snowboarding and cold-water fishing, and make local niche resorts economically nonviable. And we can expect difficulties watering manicured green spaces in our public gardens and golf courses. 

Thankfully, Appalachia is Naturally Resilient

While these extreme weather events easily paint a grim picture, compared to much of the nation, Appalachia is relatively well-positioned to adapt to the effects of climate change according to Invest Appalachia’s 2023 climate analysis report. It states, “the geostrategic importance of the region’s natural and ecological assets in the face of the climate crisis present significant and complex opportunities for future generations” 

The region’s ecosystems are hardy. This is particularly true within more mountainous landscapes where moderating temperatures and elevation variations create comfortable microclimates, called “climate strongholds.” 

These strongholds are areas especially resistant to the climate’s changing conditions and Appalachia happens to have an abundance of them. Experts say they will serve as a crucial refuge for a rich variety of plant and animal species seeking respite from the heat and droughts.

“Species that we’re used to seeing in certain areas are either evolving out or being overtaken by invasive species that are now thriving in the changing climate,” Metheny said. 

The Nature Conservancy compares Appalachia to the Amazon rainforest as “one of the most globally important landscapes for tackling climate change and conserving biodiversity.” The region’s forests store approximately 56 percent of the East Coast’s above-ground carbon, providing lasting havens of cooler weather. 

Temperature sanctuaries such as these will become more and more important to those who seek recreation in unspoiled wilderness, especially during summer months.

The Forecast is Not All Bad

In a swiftly changing environment, the total value of outdoor recreation is flourishing. In 2021, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy reported that “existing historical communities on and surrounding the Trail are becoming key partners in the development of a sustainable rural economy surrounding the Trail corridor, based on access to the outdoors.”

And excluding snow activities, outdoor recreation as a whole will see an extended season. Times when outdoor experiences didn’t previously appeal to most people will become year-round occasions for leisure and adventure, providing the opportunity for a boost to both physical and mental health outcomes. 

In Southern Appalachia, it’s foreseeable that by 2050 parks and trails will be accessible without much winter preparation from mid-February through November. The number of days per year with temperatures considered comfortable for outdoor activities will increase throughout Central Appalachia. Despite heavier rains in the north, the total number of overcast days is forecasted to be fewer. 

“With the hiking season prolonged, it will take pressure off the influx of long-distance hikers in the southern section and even out the Appalachian Trail’s use,” Metheny said. “Spreading this out over location and time decreases the ecological footprint and provides hikers who want certain outdoor experiences like solitude more availability.” 

Metheny says more than ever, people seek mental breaks by exploring natural spaces, engaging in physical activity with loved ones, and taking moments for self-reflection and creativity that contrast the often unhealthy conditions of our hectic daily lives.

“There’s the obvious negatives to climate change. But we’re aware of the work and diligently getting ahead of some of these severe impacts. We’re considering both sides of the story; preparation, but at the same time, incorporating resiliency,” Metheny said. 

“We have the advantage now of seeing conditions starting to change and are getting the sense that we’re at the front edge of something significant developing.” 

The post From Flooding to Fires: Appalachia’s Recreation Industry Faces Climate Change Challenges appeared first on 100 Days in Appalachia.

SALEM — Salem Elementary School always felt like home to Angel Smith and Joshua Griffin.

Smith remembers adventures looking for bugs on the trail behind the school. Classes were small, and her classmates were people she’d grown up with. There were teachers who’d spend their own money on pizza for the class and took extra time with her on more difficult subjects. 

Now a mother, she had hoped her nine-month-old son would get to have a similar experience.

“I want him to be able to go up to Salem, right where I went,” she said.

Griffin said he struggled in school, but his time at Salem was a bright spot where teachers gave him more personal attention — attention that was tougher to come by in high school.

“The larger the classes got, the harder it was to actually get that individual help,” he said.

Now, following a school board vote, Salem Elementary and other Harrison County schools are expected to consolidate, and bigger schools and classrooms will result. County officials say the main reason for the consolidation is staff vacancies — and the problem is compounded by fewer students due in part to new state laws encouraging students to transfer to private schools and homeschooling.

Under the plan approved by the county, six schools will be combined into three buildings. While the other consolidating schools are all in Clarksburg, Salem will be left without a school. If state educational officials approve the plan, it would be implemented in the 2025-2026 school year.

Harrison County Board of Education President Gary Hamrick said that fewer teachers are entering the workforce, adding that state lawmakers have devalued teaching degrees by making it easier to obtain alternative certifications. He also said teacher shortages have become worse over the years; some schools are reliant on long-term substitutes, and some days, no substitute is available at all.

“And then it puts the onus on the permanent teachers there to cover a couple classrooms, just to make it through the day,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Harrison County is struggling with people moving away and an aging population, even as other recent laws are making it easier for students to leave public school for virtual schools, charter schools and homeschooling. 

Now, Hamrick said the school board has no choice but to try to prevent future funding deficits by increasing class sizes — some currently only have around ten students.

“Our primary concern is making sure that we educate the students and do it in a way that there’s not an extra burden on the taxpayers,” Hamrick said.

Harrison County Superintendent Dora Stutler and her office’s spokesperson didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment, including requests for records supporting stated rationale for the plan.

But Ryan Deems, a teacher at Mountaineer Middle School and president of the Harrison County Education Association, confirmed teachers are leaving the profession. He said the reasons include stress from working with kids with behavior problems, burnout from covering multiple classrooms and low pay.

“Most of my personal friends are teachers,” he said. “And I’m not sure I could name a teacher who hasn’t looked at leaving.”

And some kids are leaving too. In 2021, lawmakers created the Hope Scholarship program to allow students to leave public schools and use the state funding allocated for them on other options, including private schools and homeschooling. 

Josiah Batten, headmaster of Emmanuel Christian School in Clarksburg, said his school saw an increase in enrollment from about 60 students last year to 95 this year, in large part due to the Hope Scholarship. After the state pays nearly $5,000 a year per child, parents are responsible for about $500 more for the school’s tuition. 

Batten said parents tell him public schools don’t reflect their conservative values, and they thought discipline issues at these schools were going unaddressed. He said because Emmanuel administrators believe parents have a Biblical right to be the educators of their children, parents and teachers work together when discipline is needed.

“If a kid is engaging in what we typically call attention seeking behaviors, it’s because they need attention,” he said.

He said he knows many local families who’ve decided another alternative educational path, homeschooling, is best for their children.

But even though small private schools and homeschooling can provide individualized attention, Emily Sendling and Wayne Shuman found that in public school, too — and they worry the pending consolidation will change the feel of their close-knit community. 

Sendling and Shuman are 11th graders at Liberty High, which would be combined with another Clarksburg high school — Robert C. Byrd — if the state approves the consolidation plan. The new school would have more than 1,000 students, which they worry will be overwhelming. 

Over lunch at T&L Hot Dogs, Sendling, Shuman, and Liberty cross country coach Jerry Burgess recalled sporting events at the high school with stands filled with supporters.

Burgess, who has coached at multiple schools, said students surround him wanting photos with him at games.  

“That’s never happened anywhere else,” he said.

While Shuman will have graduated by the time the proposed consolidations take place, he worries about his younger sister, who has a developmental disability. When consolidation plans were announced, one of the special education teachers who helped his sister left in fear for her job.

“I can tell you, if this was reversed, teachers would come back,” Burgess said.

Right now, Shuman’s sister is a sophomore at Liberty, and the small class sizes mean she gets support and one-on-one attention. But all three agreed that attention might be harder to come by when the size of the school more than doubles. 

“She’d get swallowed,” Burgess said.

As schools consolidate in rural Harrison County, students and alumni worry kids will suffer appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

West Virginia, a state that continues to laud its role as an energy producer, hasn’t had an energy plan on the books for a decade, despite a state law requiring it. 

Under state code, the Department of Economic Development’s Office of Energy must develop and submit a five-year energy plan to the governor and Legislature. The report is intended to set the state’s energy policies and direct the private sector. The office is required to submit a new plan six months before the previous plan is set to expire.

But under Gov. Jim Justice’s administration, no plans have been finalized. The office’s last report was completed in 2013, mapping out the energy plan through 2017. Although the Office of Energy held public hearings and received public comments and recommendations on the next iteration — 2018 to 2022 — no finalized report was ever published.

Christy Risch, senior research analyst for the Center for Business and Economic Research at Marshall University, said these types of plans are important for a state like West Virginia because they lay the groundwork for establishing state energy priorities.  

“The purpose of these plans is to address policy and take stances on the broad categories of energy supply, energy use and energy production,” she said.

When asked about the missing energy plans, Office of Energy Director Nicholas Preservati said there were drafts but no finalized reports. The office is currently working on a draft for a new five-year plan, according to Preservati. 

Behind a statewide energy plan

West Virginia has only created two five-year plans since the requirement was created in 2007 when the state also established the Office of Energy, which was called the Division of Energy at the time. 

Such statewide energy plans aren’t unique; most other states also produce similar reports, which can “enable states to capitalize on existing energy resources, infrastructure, and human capital through targeted goals and directives to encourage economic development” and “set forward-thinking energy policies for the state,” according to the National Association of State Energy Officials. 

In West Virginia, the five-year plans are also supposed to be accompanied by annual energy development plans, reports where the agency outlines its efforts to implement the state’s energy policy over the previous year as well as propose any legislation recommendations. While there hasn’t been a five-year plan in place since 2017, state energy officials have submitted annual plans to the Legislature every year since 2008 except for in 2018, 2022 and 2023. 

Per state code, the energy plan must address a variety of topics, including energy efficiency, infrastructure, the development and production of new and existing energy sources and the implementation of renewable and technically innovative energy projects. The development process also must include public hearings and meetings to allow the public to provide input on the proposed energy policies and plans.

Because the Office of Energy is also charged with promoting collaboration between West Virginia’s colleges and universities, nonprofits and private companies, Risch was one of several people who helped the state agency with updates to the plan. She said she never received feedback on her 2017 submission, a report on renewable energy, which was supposed to be incorporated into the 2018 to 2022 plan.

“I’m not sure where they were going on that,” Risch said, noting that, at the time, she was waiting for feedback from the Office of Energy before finalizing her portion of the plan. 

Since West Virginia’s last energy plan, there have been significant developments in the industry, including new technologies that prompted the growth of renewable energy sources and investments in battery manufacturing and hydrogen production. This, Risch said, only further underscores the need for a state plan.

“It is important,” Risch said. “An energy plan will show that the state has been considering these issues and understands where they are.”

So far, the state has been able to attract a string of industry and economic development spurred by clean energy investments, including a battery plant in Weirton, the Nucor steel plant in Mason County and the recently-announced LG innovation center. 

But even though the state has already begun to invest in several of the newer parts of the energy industry, a state energy plan is a way West Virginia can ensure it will maximize its investments, said Ann Eisenberg, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University. 

“I think with these novel energy developments right now, there’s very much a Wild West environment throughout the whole country that is getting sort of directed and shaped by federal leadership, but now, states have this opportunity to be more intentional about it as well,” added Eisenberg.

And West Virginia’s unique role as an energy-producing state amid the rapidly developing and expanding energy sector could be in jeopardy. Without a statewide energy plan, the state could be at risk of falling behind other states, according to Risch.   

The absence of an energy plan “shows the state has not put forward the effort to take positions” on newer developments in the energy sector, she said, noting that nuclear is one energy resource West Virginia could further utilize and invest in. 

“Some things you don’t want to miss out on,” Risch added. “But you don’t want to be too early on things that don’t end up being helpful or that are very costly.”  

West Virginia is required to have a five-year plan outlining its energy priorities. It hasn’t published one in nearly a decade. appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

PARSONS — Driving on U.S. Route 48 from the north into the Tucker County seat, drivers used to be greeted by a three-business plaza. 

But now, with the closure last month of Walgreens, the only store left in the plaza is the Family Dollar. 

“It just looks so empty on this side of town,” said long-time resident Dana Corcoran. “It just looks like a ghost town.” 

When Walgreens announced it would close the Parsons location — one of 150 store closures across the country — it prompted criticism from Gov. Jim Justice, who sent a letter to the corporation decrying the economic loss and lack of warning. 

In Parsons, there’s another option for prescriptions; the St. George Clinic Pharmacy is just a half-mile away. 

But for many, the Walgreens closure is the latest in a long string of closures — a large number of which occurred after the 1985 flood — that has resulted in fewer and fewer places to buy household essentials.

One evening several days after the closure, the indoor lights of the Walgreens still shined on part of the parking lot as former Walgreens workers loaded up a semi-truck with storage totes. 

Just a short walk away, Mary Moore, 85, lives in a house by the river with her husband, Okey. 

Moore knows well the role pharmacies can play in a community. She worked for Parsons’ locally owned pharmacy, Barb’s Drug Store, for years before it closed, as well at the Rite Aid that followed. She said community members would even walk in to ask for recommendations on other local businesses, such as advice on a good plumber or electrician.

“I miss my people,” she said.

The Moores’ house is one of many in Parsons on stilts — reminders of the Cheat River flood of 1985, which many say irreversibly damaged the town. After that, Parsons’ population dropped: from about 1,900 in 1980 to about 1,300 in 2020.

Insurance agent Bob Gutshall’s original office was wiped out by the flood. He said he had to swim out to survive, gesturing to his chin to describe the height of the water. 

“It’s the flood of ‘85 that killed us,” he said.

But before that, he said the town was once a bustling place, full of restaurants, stores and pedestrians.

“Sometimes you parked your car the night before just to have a place to park for Saturday coming up,” he said.

That was nearly 40 years ago. Now, residents have to drive to cities half an hour to an hour or so away like Elkins, Clarksburg or Morgantown for items like appliances and clothing. And the recent Walgreens closure will mean residents will have to leave town for even more items like seasonal decor, cards and higher-quality toiletries. 

Rob Klein watched a sense of complacency envelop the town following the flood. He wants to see local officials focus more on infrastructure and economic development, but said residents are slow to change. Klein cited one example, when about eight years ago, residents voted down a fee increase for expanded ambulance services. 

“We’re a very gray-haired state,” he said. “And I think Tucker County’s super gray haired.” 

Tucker County Commission President Michael Rosenau said the county is working on economic development — commissioners apply for grants to improve infrastructure, and they are working to promote the river as a kayaking destination.

“We only have like 6,400 residents in our county,” he said. “So there’s not a lot of funds to work with.”

There is also some forward-looking planning going on elsewhere in the region, including plans for Corridor H to connect Weston to Front Royal in Virginia, through scenic West Virginia ski areas. 

The planned route will go right past Parsons, but Crystal Nutter, owner of Crystal’s Bakery, said completion will mean less reason to visit their town.

“Why would you get off the four-lane just to come in here to Crystal’s Bakery?” she said. 

Nutter noted the Walgreens closure also meant the loss of jobs. She worries her kids will have to leave town for work.

“I honestly don’t know if anything could survive here because there’s nothing here,” she said.

Walgreens closure is latest blow to Parsons in decades-long fight against decline appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

As we prepare to close the book on 2023, the staff here at 100 Days is thinking back on some of the writing that resonated with them this past year. With topics ranging from religion to community, check out some of their favorites below.

‘Harm Reduction Saves Lives’: Meet the Appalachians Doing the Work

by Taylor Sisk

There’s a phrase writers often use to describe good writing: “Show, don’t tell.” It’s a concept my colleague at 100 Days Taylor Sisk understands and applies very well in the story “‘Harm Reduction Saves Lives:’ Meet the Appalachians Doing the Work.”

Taylor takes us into the work of people like Ainsely Bryce, director of Holler Harm Reduction based in the North Carolina mountains. On a hot Saturday morning, Bryce and a colleague discreetly distribute supplies like clean needles, naloxone, lip balm and Pedialyte from the parking lot of a Dollar General Store. Taylor also describes the people who show up for help. They are human beings who need help, and Bryce provides it, no questions asked.

Taylor’s writing, along with Stacy Kravitzs’ photos, showed the community and respect – the humanity –  of those giving help and those receiving it.

There are lessons here, I think, about central Appalachia and the people who live here. Our region has run politically red for the past several election cycles, and as Taylor points out, conservative political leaders have not passed policy that aligns with the science of harm reduction.But our people keep showing us that there is another way. A way to address the region’s challenges with kindness and tenacity; with the conviction that ultimately we have to help each other to solve our problems. That we are more than any simplistic red state trope. This is the kind of reporting that I love, and it’s our bread and butter here at 100 Days. We can be honest about the challenges our region faces while lifting up the work and humanity of the people who live here.

– Laura Harbert Allen, Religion Reporter

Protestant Leaders Balance Cultural Divides as LGBTQ Issues Split Appalachian Statehouse

by Laura Harbert Allen

What I love about Laura’s work on our religion beat is that it complicates the often black-and-white story people outside our region seem to want to tell about it. Religion, and its role in our lives, is as nuanced as any other aspect of it.

I always appreciate Laura’s capacity to tell stories with empathy, but it’s a skill that’s especially important when tackling a topic like LGBTQ rights in the church. This story is a great example of that.

Like all good journalism, this story doesn’t push an agenda, but simply shows what the conversation around gay rights within Appalachian religious communities looks like.

– Jesse Wright, chief data officer and contributing editor

The West Side: A Community Defining Its Future

by Laura Harbert Allen and Taylor Sisk

My favorite story of the year was actually a series of stories – a series in which I was privileged to be involved. It’s titled “The West Side: A Community Defining its Future,” and it was a collaboration with 100 Days religion reporter Laura Harbert Allen. The four-part series explores the challenges Charleston, West Virginia’s West Side community is facing and how the community is responding, both on a day-to-day basis and more strategically.

There are two primary reasons I’ve selected it as my favorite. First, because collaborating with Laura was a great experience and a pleasure. Religion and health care (my beat) are major themes in the series, and I think we complemented each other very nicely.

The second reason is that it was a rare opportunity to do deep-dive journalism. Laura and I spent quite a bit of time reporting (nearly a year), and I’m very grateful for being given that opportunity. I hope and trust more such lies ahead.

See the series for yourself here.

– Taylor Sisk, Health Care Correspondent

Creators and Innovators Newsletter: “A live memory of a dead reality.”

by Tucker Jones

Tucker Jones and I first met in the airport as we were flying to Dublin for a three-week study abroad. I knew immediately he was something special. His writing for our Creators & Innovators Newsletter Series in November was tender, vulnerable and deep yet at the same time whimsical and humorous.

This one, in which he discusses finding the beauty even in ‘dead’ grass, is one I particularly enjoy – I won’t call it my ‘favorite,’ because as Tucker writes, favorites “suffice as responses to settle the dreaded burden of small talk, but I think that’s all they’re good for.”

– Skylar Baker-Jordan, Contributing Editor for Community Engagement

Appalachian DIY and the Places that House it

by Griffin McMorrow

Each week, Skylar Baker Jordan is writing beautiful prose in his newsletter, but this summer while Skylar studied abroad in the UK for his masters, he handed the reins over to some Appalachians with new and different perspectives on the region.

One of those, and one of my favorite newsletters of the year, came from a West Virginia native Griffin McMurrow. In this specific dispatch, “Appalachian DIY and the Places that House it,” Griffin laments on the loss of a Pittsburgh-based underground music and art space where you could experience punk, amateur wrestling and burlesque all in one night. A place where for a generation of young people, art wasn’t hierarchical but a celebration.

– Ashton Marra, Executive Editor

This Pride, ‘I Love My Hometown Whether It Loves Me Back or Not’

by Dani Lamorte

Pittsburgh-based artist and writer Dani Lamorte revisited his hometown of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, for its PRIDE in the Park event in June 2023. Similar to many people in the region, Dani has a complicated relationship with his hometown – “Unreturned messages formed by queer youth in this small Appalachian town. I sent out little signals about my desires and needs, about the images I wanted to make of myself, and of the guttural ache to not be knocked around by school boards and church leaders. I wanted to ask for room to breathe.”

“When I opened my mouth, those same leaders crammed it full of words I couldn’t swallow…I choked until I left that town, found people who were throwing up all the same garbage as me. I found people who could return my message.”

Dani hasn’t lived in Vandergrift for 20 years, but upon returning for the town’s inaugural LGBTQ+ Pride event, he spent time with some of the town’s younger residents who are pushing for change.

While I’m not part of the LGBTQ community, many of the people I hold dearest to me are. And this uncomfortable existence in a town that isn’t willing to support your needs that Dani describes is a similar sentiment that my loved ones from around the region also hold of their hometowns. It’s also one I can personally relate after I too returned back to my hometown this summer, away from my found community, after not living here for a few years. I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months reflecting on all the ways growing up I felt like an outsider in my community, and even now at moments, for not existing amongst the norms set in my upbringing.

This piece, with the accompanying stunning images from Ava O’Brien, is a reflection about the fractured relationship to place that many in the region – across identities and generations – can relate to.

“It’s a difficult and indelible feeling, belonging to a place even if you can’t quite belong in a place,” Dani writes. “It’s the feeling that brought me to Vandergrift. I didn’t belong in Vandergrift when I was growing up, but now there are people who are willing to hear the messages I’m sending out.”

– Kristen Uppercue, Deputy Editor for Special Projects

The post 2023’s Biggest Hits: Our Staff’s Favorite Stories This Year appeared first on 100 Days in Appalachia.

This article was produced with ProPublica as part of its Local Reporting Network initiative. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

West Virginia’s fund to clean up abandoned coal mines is in such dire shape that it threatens to stick taxpayers with hundreds of millions — perhaps even billions — of dollars in cleanup costs. And yet, little is being done to turn things around.

The bankruptcy of just one significant mining company could wipe out the fund, according to the state’s top regulatory official. And auditors for the Republican-controlled Legislature said at least five major companies were “at risk” of dumping cleanup costs on the state.

At $15 million, the state’s fund for restoring land is at its lowest level in more than 20 years. The program’s latest published actuarial report in 2022 warned that a related water cleanup trust fund will lose half its balance over the next 10 years.

These are costs the coal industry was supposed to cover. Unreclaimed mine sites can not only damage the environment but also endanger coalfield residents who live nearby. Coal waste dams sometimes leak or break, flooding downstream communities. Cliffs of rock and debris left behind after mining can collapse. Runoff that isn’t contained or treated often poisons fish or water supplies.

This crisis is emerging in other coal states like Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, which have also had problems with their mine reclamation programs. But West Virginia offers perhaps the clearest and most troubling portrait of what could happen as the coal industry’s decline continues.

The state fund’s problems have been depicted as a recent phenomenon tied to a wave of coal company bankruptcies over the past decade. But a detailed review by Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica reveals that they are far from that.

State and federal officials have been warned repeatedly over the past 40 years that this reckoning was coming but have failed to prepare for it. Again and again, the review found, auditors questioned whether West Virginia’s reclamation program would have adequate funding.

But neither state lawmakers nor regulators required coal companies to have enough reclamation bonds as insurance should they go belly up. Nor did legislators raise the tax on coal production enough to make up the difference. Federal officials in both Republican and Democratic administrations who were supposed to oversee the state program cautioned there were problems but didn’t step in.

Just two years ago, West Virginia’s legislative leaders ignored recommendations from their own auditors to bolster the fund. Instead, they called for an $8 billion bailout from the federal government. And last month, Gov. Jim Justice’s administration removed a key critic from an advisory panel that monitors the fund, just as the group was about to review a new study on the fund’s future health. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Environmental groups have pleaded with the Biden administration to focus on the reclamation crisis in the coalfields. But nearly three years into his term, President Joseph Biden still hasn’t nominated a director to lead the agency charged with enforcing the mining reclamation law.

As a result, a close examination of the fund’s finances and the state of the coal industry shows, the problem is no longer something out in the future.

“The system never fully worked,” said Peter Morgan, a Sierra Club lawyer who has advocated reforming the system for years. “It limped along for a while, but it is completely broken today.”

In response to questions, Interior Department spokesperson Giovanni Rocco said the agency’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement regularly reviews state reclamation programs and in 2021 told West Virginia officials to better track cleanup liabilities. Rocco referred OSMRE nomination questions to the White House, which did not respond.

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Terry Fletcher said in an email that the agency will continue to work “to improve the overall financial viability” of the program. The agency has about $1 billion that could fund reclamation projects, including available coal company bonds. But environmental groups predict the cost will be much more than that.

One of the firms that could tip the fund over the edge is Lexington Coal Company, which grew rapidly in recent years by cobbling together permits held by mining firms that went bankrupt.

In 2017, Alpha Natural Resources, once the nation’s third largest coal producer, paid Lexington, then a little-known company, hundreds of millions of dollars to take permits with massive reclamation problems off its balance sheet. Lexington promised the move would “accelerate reclamation” within five years.

Today, Lexington holds nearly 200 permits in West Virginia, making it one of the state’s largest coal companies on paper. But there’s little evidence that the company is producing much coal — and lots of evidence that it’s struggling to do the reclamation work it’s currently obligated to do.

Lexington officials did not respond to questions.

One of its operations, the Twilight Mountaintop Removal Mine, was once among the largest in the state. Over its quarter-century life, the main mine at the Twilight complex about an hour south of Charleston produced more than 60 million tons of coal to provide electricity and help make steel. Last year, it produced less than 200,000 tons.

Left behind is the rock and dirt that mine operators shoved into valleys, burying streams. Remnants of coal silos and preparation plants have been overtaken by brush. Most dramatically — and only fully grasped from an aerial view — are massive moonscapes of gray and brown rubble where the mountains were once lush and green.

“It’s a post-apocalyptic nightmare,” said Vernon Haltom, a leader of Coal River Mountain Watch, a grassroots group fighting the coal industry. “It looks like a vast, sparse wasteland, like after a nuclear war.”

Ignored warnings

From the earliest days of coal mining in the United States, mining operators took what they could from the hills and hollows and moved on to the next mine, often leaving a mess for residents to live with.

President Jimmy Carter’s signing of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 was intended to stop that. The law required coal companies to clean up the damage and restore the hills and creeks, a process known as reclamation.

And there was supposed to be a backup funding plan. States were required to make mine operators post bonds as a type of insurance to cover reclamation costs if the companies went bankrupt. Bonds were to be set at amounts sufficient to reclaim the mined land and treat polluted water.

But Congress also created an industry-friendly alternative. Coal companies could post smaller bonds if they paid a production tax into a state-run fund that regulators could use to reclaim abandoned mines. Under federal law, these pooled systems were required to be as effective at cleaning up mines as full-cost bonding programs. Lawmakers charged OSMRE with ensuring the state programs worked.

In West Virginia, this system proved to be inadequate from the start, according to a review by Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica. OSMRE was initially supportive when the state proposed a bond pool in 1980 but also asked for more proof that it would provide sufficient funding to cover long-term cleanup costs.

Two years later, a preliminary study warned that reclamation costs were expected to exceed bond coverage. Though state officials were optimistic the coal production tax money would make up the difference, the actuarial study cautioned that “there is a great deal more to be done before this study should be considered conclusive.”

The questions raised were never answered. But the following year, the Reagan administration approved West Virginia’s pooled system anyway, deciding that it “appears to be basically sound.”

Despite the administration’s confidence, West Virginia’s financial problems became apparent by the mid-1980s. One congressional audit documented delays in cleaning up abandoned mines. Another warned that the reclamation fund was millions of dollars short. Another that the program didn’t account for the escalating costs of treating contaminated streams.

Both the Bush and Clinton administrations warned the state that its program needed more money. But West Virginia officials again did little.

“Everyone knew it was a sham,” said Pat McGinley, a longtime West Virginia University environmental law professor. “State and federal regulators and politicians winked and nodded while the law was violated for more than four decades.”

Then, in 2001, environmental groups thought they might be looking at a breakthrough. They’d filed a lawsuit to reform West Virginia’s reclamation program, and it had landed before Chief U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II. Though considered a conservative judge, Haden had shown no patience for coal industry abuses or lax regulatory attitudes.

Things had also changed in the West Virginia governor’s office. In 2000, Democratic former U.S. Rep. Bob Wise defeated a Republican onetime coal company executive. Wise promised to strictly enforce environmental protection laws in the mining industry and appointed a former federal prosecutor known for taking on coal companies to run his enforcement agency.

The agency proposed increasing required bond amounts and the coal production tax rate. But lawmakers weren’t interested, and the legislative package died.

A few months later, Haden issued a blistering opinion in the federal lawsuit, decrying the decadeslong inaction as “a climate of lawlessness, which creates a pervasive impression that continued disregard for federal law and statutory requirements goes unpunished, or possibly unnoticed.”

The judge, however, deferred to OSMRE, saying agency experts were better suited to prescribe how the state’s reclamation woes should be addressed.

Partly in response, OSMRE in 2002 started drafting a new federal rule to ensure enough money was set aside for expensive long-term treatment of water pollution. But agency officials delayed publishing the proposed rule a half-dozen times. Then they dropped the idea without explanation. The agency’s spokesperson said that action occurred too long ago, and under a previous administration, for him to explain without more research.

West Virginia officials did slightly increase the special reclamation tax and created a task force of industry, government and environmental players to monitor the fund and recommend fixes.

But, as McGinley recounted in a law review article, those changes were a modest compromise.

“The final product of the closeted consultations with industry representatives,” he wrote, “was a DEP-backed bill intended to marginally satisfy OSM, while minimizing, as much as possible, financial burdens on coal companies.”

The breaking point

By the 2010s, as coal faced growing competition from natural gas and renewable energy, the long-predicted crisis began to arrive.

Since 2012, more than 60 coal companies, including some of the biggest in the country, have gone bankrupt. That left thousands of acres abandoned or shuffled to other companies. Many more companies are teetering on the financial brink.

By 2021, even the auditors working for the Legislature were taking aim at the crisis. The reclamation bonds carried by coal companies would cover less than 10% of cleanup costs, their audit reported. And the state had enough money on hand for less than 40% of the sites that would need to be cleaned up over the next 20 years.

One at-risk coal company, ERP Environmental Fund, was in such bad shape, the auditors noted, that West Virginia regulators convinced a local judge to put the company into receivership, a move that avoided bankruptcy but left the future of its unreclaimed sites unclear. The head of the state environmental agency cautioned in court filings in 2020 that ERP’s bonds were nowhere near enough to cover its reclamation costs, warning the firm’s bankruptcy “would overwhelm” the state’s cleanup fund “both financially and administratively.”

An attorney for ERP didn’t respond to a call for this story. The firm didn’t object to the state’s receivership motion, and the receiver said in an email that he’s working to sell the firm’s assets so they can be reclaimed.

The legislative auditors suggested concrete steps to shore up the state’s fund: Lawmakers could increase the bond amounts, or regulators could force companies to begin cleanups more quickly after a mine stops producing coal.

But instead of following their recommendations, Senate President Craig Blair, a Republican from the Eastern Panhandle, called for a federal bailout, and state lawmakers passed a resolution asking for $8 billion for mine reclamation projects. Blair said the government owed it to West Virginia to pay for the cleanups, blaming coal’s decline on federal regulations.

So far, there hasn’t been much movement on a federal bailout. A separate proposal in Congress last year would have diverted money from an underfunded program to reclaim older mines — abandoned before the 1977 mining law — to new mines that coal companies, bonds and reclamation funds were supposed to cover. But the legislation went nowhere.

A spokesperson for Blair said the senator has “demonstrated his commitment to solving this issue.” Blair’s office cited his legislation creating a new state-funded insurance company for the mining industry. That firm doesn’t address the reclamation fund’s financial problems, but it does give coal operators another option for buying cleanup bonds.

West Virginia lawmakers will have another chance to address the problem when their session opens in January. Delegate Evan Hansen, a Democrat from Morgantown, said he will introduce a bill to increase required bond amounts  — a measure he unsuccessfully proposed two years ago and that environmental groups have been urging for decades.

It could be a tough sell, given the Republican supermajority at the statehouse. Both Blair and West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw said last month that it was too early to discuss any potential plans for the session.

Recent political events also suggest that’s the case. Two days before a key meeting in November, the Justice administration removed a longtime critic from the advisory council that monitors the state’s reclamation fund.

John Morgan, a mining engineer who for 20 years represented environmental groups on the council, had consistently used his spot to push for a fuller accounting of the risks posed by the monumental changes in the coal industry. Morgan was planning to raise concerns about two issues: the large number of permits with no production and the risks that relying on a smaller number of mines poses for the production tax that provides much of the program’s revenue.

On the agenda was reviewing a draft of an actuarial study, obtained by Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica, that shows a surprisingly large improvement in the fund’s financial position.

The most recent actuarial report, published in 2022, projected the fund’s liabilities had grown to $565 million. But according to the new draft, the liabilities dropped by $115 million as of June, and the reclamation fund will remain solvent through 2043. Study author Daniel Lupton of the firm Taylor & Mulder attributed the change to improvements in how the state estimates liabilities related to building water pollution treatment operations.

“The projection’s actually great,” Rob Rice, a WVDEP deputy director, recently told Congress.

Morgan says such estimates are unrealistic. “I get very worked up about the fund because everyone is ignoring reality,” he said. “I don’t think anyone can say that it’s solvent.”

Environmental groups say even the 2022 liability figure was an underestimate. An Appalachian Voices analysis warned that West Virginia’s price tag could ultimately be close to $3.6 billion, with only about a third funded by bonds.

Lupton acknowledged that the concerns Morgan had been raising aren’t fully addressed in his firm’s study and said state officials haven’t provided adequate data to do so.

“No matter how good my model is, there are some elements to what’s going on in the industry that are related to politics and human decision making that will always be beyond the reach of my numerical modeling,” Lupton told Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica in an email.

Without such data, environmental groups have pushed the Interior Department to at least conduct a financial “stress test” of major mining bond providers and state programs.

“Because reclamation burdens are so high, and available bonds so inadequate,” Appalachian Voices and other groups wrote last month, “regulators have every incentive to paper over the problem and avoid forcing the issue.”

A mine on the edge

One critical piece of data that West Virginia doesn’t collect is a mine’s expected reclamation costs. Pressed by an environmental group lawsuit, federal regulators ordered the state to track such liabilities in 2021, noting that the state’s program “contains the same or similar deficiencies” as federal reviews found two decades earlier.

But so far, the state’s database includes only the number of acres needing restoration. Fletcher from WVDEP said the state can compare that to average costs from past reclamation projects “as needed” to calculate liabilities.

Because the state doesn’t have specific mine-by-mine estimates, though, critics say it has no way of assessing whether a company’s bonds will cover a cleanup or what the burden on the state’s fund might ultimately be. For instance, while the state audit report said that Lexington’s permits have $167 million in reclamation bonds, there is no information about the company’s liabilities.

A look at Lexington’s recent struggles reveals why that lack of information matters.

With nearly 200 permits, Lexington commands a vast amount of mining land in West Virginia. But with just 135 employees statewide, the company appears to be on the financial edge. If it’s true, as auditors’ estimate, that bonds typically cover only 10% of reclamation costs, the numbers show a Lexington default could easily drain the reclamation fund.

Lexington is managed by Jeremy Hoops, and court records show the firm is owned by a Hoops family trust. In emails disclosed in court, family patriarch Jeff Hoops said Lexington was formed in 2004 out of the bankruptcy of another firm to take that company’s “bad assets.” Jeff Hoops also founded Blackjewel, whose 2019 bankruptcy left behind dozens of unreclaimed mines in eastern Kentucky, as Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica outlined this spring.

In an email, Jeff Hoops declined comment, saying he has “no involvement” with Lexington. Earlier this year, he said that creditors forced Blackjewel into bankruptcy and that the company responded promptly to environmental violations.

Now Lexington seems to be in trouble. State environmental records and federal court filings document that Lexington doesn’t appear to have the resources to complete its reclamation work. And efforts by regulators and courts to intervene have been largely ineffective.

In 2021, a WVDEP inspector cited Lexington for failing to remove a highwall, a cliff of rock and debris leftover after mining, at its Twilight complex. The WVDEP inspector considered the violation serious enough to require correction by the following day. That never happened. In the two years since, the agency has pushed back the deadline to correct the problem 25 times, accepting Lexington’s explanation that weather conditions hampered its work.

In July, federal inspectors visited the site after citizens complained about WVDEP’s handling of the situation and said that the agency shouldn’t have allowed that as an excuse for two years. Those OSMRE inspectors noted that Lexington had stopped reclamation work at the site for three months in late 2022 and since then had moved one piece of equipment doing cleanup at Twilight back and forth to another mine.

In 2022, three sections of hillside at the Twilight mine collapsed, sending mud and debris into a small stream. Regulators ordered the creek cleaned and the hillsides stabilized. The mess still hadn’t been cleaned up six months later, prompting West Virginia officials to suspend the mine’s permit. But the state and the company quickly settled. The stream was cleaned, but other violations continued.

Lexington’s problems, and a lack of tough regulation, are also visible at other mines it owns. A federal judge has grown so tired of Lexington’s delays in addressing illegal levels of toxic selenium and other pollutants in the runoff from two mines in Mingo County that last year he held the firm in contempt of court.

In court filings, Lexington has said it is working diligently and making progress toward compliance. But on Nov. 17, a federal judge ruled that Lexington “is moving at a sluggish pace, with no sense of urgency or diligence.” He fined Lexington $50,000, the latest in a series of court orders related to payments or deadlines the company missed to clean up its mines.

“They are just hanging by a thread,” said Michael Becher, an attorney for the citizen groups.

West Virginians could get stuck cleaning up the coal industry’s messes appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

BERKELEY COUNTY — Apples are everywhere in Berkeley County.

Each of the county’s three water towers has a Red Delicious painted on the side. In downtown Martinsburg, a giant statue of an apple marks the location of a time capsule planted in 1990. And at Musselman High, the mascot is the Applemen. Today, it’s just a Red Delicious with a green leaf, but at one point the apple mascot included beefy arms and legs and a screaming face.

The school’s namesake, an apple processing plant, went out of business years ago. Today, it’s a church.

While apples loom large in the area’s history and culture, the fruit itself is increasingly disappearing from the Eastern Panhandle. Orchards once dotted the landscape; in 1987, Berkeley County alone had almost 10,000 acres growing apples and peaches. But as the Interstate 81 corridor has developed and folks from the D.C. Metro area moved in, the trees have been hacked down, the land paved over and warehouses and housing developments built instead.

As of the 2017 agricultural census — the latest number available — the county’s orchard land was only about a quarter of what it was 30 years ago.

Despite the changes, there are still farmers and orchardists in Berkeley County. Not far from the buzz of I-81, where trucks haul goods up and down the Eastern United States, one can still find rows and rows of apple trees. But as the county changes, those farmers and orchardists that remain are searching for ways to hold on and continue the agricultural tradition.

A tale of two orchards 

Back in the 1940s, decades before the interstate gobbled up nearly 40,000 acres of farmland, a man named George S. Orr Jr. started piecing together plots of orchard land.

By the time he died in the late 1980s, Orr had amassed over 1,000 acres. Today, the land is split between two parts of the family — each with different routes forward in the ever changing county.

West of Martinsburg, one path leads down a little gravel road to Orr’s Farm Market.

According to market manager Katy Orr-Dove, George Orr’s granddaughter, the market started thirty years ago with a simple idea: people could pay to come in and pick their own fruit. Over the years, that idea blossomed into a pumpkin patch, a petting zoo and hayrides in the fall — at one point they even had a small herd of buffalo.

Orr-Dove said when she got involved in the business after teaching for a while in Hagerstown, Maryland, she wanted to figure out a way to combine her passion for education with her background in farming.

“I found there were kids who didn’t know the sound a pig or a cow makes,” she said.

The market, sitting on half of Orr’s original orchard, is what is nowadays called an “agritourism” attraction, essentially a working farm that has visitors come to see what farming is like. It’s a growing industry, and about 300 farms statewide engage in the practice, according to the West Virginia Department of Agriculture.

With the influx of new people in the county and the wider region, Orr-Dove said she’s seen the business move away from the wholesale production of apples — in this area, mainly for sauce and juice — towards direct retail sales. She estimates when she first got involved, the market only accounted for 15% of the orchard’s revenue. Today, it’s 40%.

“Diversifying really helps,” she said. “During 2020, we saw a hit in tourism, but the wholesale was strong. Right now, the apples aren’t selling, so tourism helps.”

Right now, she’s getting a little bit of help from the state too — a backup of last year’s crop at the cold-storage facilities has caused the apple market to bottom out. A bushel, usually about 40 pounds of apples, is going for as low as 85 cents, almost half of it costs to pick them.

To keep the orchards going in the area, for the first time in West Virginia, the state Department of Agriculture and the USDA stepped in to buy up 600,000 bushels and send them to food banks.

Over the hill is another chunk of George Orr Jr.’s empire — the Appalachian Orchard Company — which chose a different road. Headquartered just off I-81 next to the Martinsburg Industrial Park, the company grows and ships apples for production — mainly for apple juice and applesauce.

Julie Bolyard, CFO and granddaughter of George Orr, said the apple market has always been different in the Eastern Panhandle and the wider Shenandoah Valley. While in high producing states a group of growers might ship apples to a central packing house, growers in the Panhandle have always packed the apples themselves and sent them directly to processors like White House in Winchester or Knouse Foods in Pennsylvania, which bought out Musselman in 1984.

With the closure of Musselman and cutbacks at White House, Bolyard said they’ve had to get creative. That includes landing a fairly lucrative contract with GoGo squeeZ, the pouches of applesauce known to parents everywhere.

Like her cousin Katy Orr-Dove, Bolyard said diversification is key to moving forward — she and her husband have also started their own meat business, with sales at local farmer’s markets.

“I think it’s good to not have our apples in one basket,” Bolyard said.

Shrinking farmland

While the big spreads of large crops are dwindling in the county, others are trying to make do with what they have — people like Ben Thompson and Kathryn Rowley, of Willow Bourne Farms.

Located at the base of North Mountain (Buck Hill, as the locals call it), the two grow and produce about a hundred products for sale at local farmers’ markets. And that’s just on five acres of land.

Unlike the Orrs, whose roots are fused to the soil of Berkeley County like the trees they grow, Rowley and Thompson are newcomers — she’s originally from Boone County, he’s from Western Pennsylvania.

But they needed a place to sell their products. And while there are long-standing farmers’ markets in Charles Town and Shepherdstown, Martinsburg never really had one.

With a few other local producers, the couple helped start the Martinsburg Farmer’s Market. Now, after years of sweating in blazing parking lots selling their wares, the farmer’s market has a permanent home in the Martinsburg Roundhouse, an old railroad interchange that was the starting point for the first nationwide strike in the country.  Many of the regular vendors are first generation farmers, just like them.

Rowley said they’ve gotten nothing but support from the established farmers in the area.

“I think the bigger farms like your Orrs have a bit of nostalgia because it reminds them of their grandfather or their great-grandfather selling produce on the side of the road,” Rowley said. “They’re not working to put people out of business — they’re rooting for us.”

And the support for the market has been a mix of folks. Thompson and Rowley said they get visitors from the city of Martinsburg who don’t have fresh foods within walking distance. They’ve also benefited from the influx of people who usually live in houses built where farmland used to be: people who moved in from Northern Virginia looking for local foods.

“They’re more health conscious and are trying not to support Big Ag,” Rowley said.

Farmland preservation

While Berkeley County has seen runaway growth and loss of farmland, the county was the first in the state to establish a farmland protection program in 2003 — now there’s a statewide program and 17 county-run organizations.

With no zoning in the county, the protection program is one of the few tools for “responsible growth,” according to county director Resa Ingram-Orsini, a fourth-generation farmer herself.

The program is pretty straightforward: if a farmer wants their land to remain for agricultural use forever, they apply to the board. If they are selected for farmland protection, the board does a survey of the plot and conducts two appraisals — one at a farmland rate and one at either commercial or residential rate. The difference between the two values is paid to the farmer (up to $6,500 an acre).

In exchange, the farmer has an easement written into the property designating it for farming and agricultural practices only.

Ironically, the program is possible because of the increased development in the area. It’s funded through the transfer tax on property sales — a “Catch-22” according to board chairman Tom Gleason. After two decades in existence, 80 farms totalling 8,500 acres are under protection.

One of them is Appalachian Orchard, which in 2022 became the first working orchard in the state to undergo farmland protection, putting 350 acres of the company’s land into the easement.

Bolyard called it a “decision of the heart.”

“The downfall of the program is because the land is strictly agricultural, it’s worth less when you get a loan from the bank,” she said. “But that doesn’t matter — we did this because I have three kids and if they want to get into farming, they’ll have the land to do it.”

But most of the county’s 73,000 acres of farmland still isn’t protected, and developers have been grabbing up land in the Shenandoah Valley portion of the county, where water and sewer hookups abound.

That’s where, just west of Inwood, White House owns a massive orchard that adds up to nearly a third of the county’s remaining orchard land.

White House is still growing apples there. But during the building boom of the early aughts, a small subdivision started to bisect a portion of the land. In recent years, that subdivision has almost cut the land in half with houses.

A couple years ago, the land was put up for auction, cut into five parcels of land. At the time, it was advertised in The Washington Business Journal and other D.C. Metro publications as a perfect opportunity for more home building and development.

The land didn’t sell, this time, but could be relisted in the future.

But across the road is another orchard, owned by the Appalachian Orchard Company. This one, though smaller, is a 250 acre spread with trees dating back to the late 1980s.

“It isn’t protected yet,” Bolyard said. “But the key word there is yet.”

Despite suburban sprawl, apple orchards and farmers find ways to survive in Berkeley County appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.