Middleway Advocates Channel Art, History Into Fight Against Bottling Plant

Updated on Tuesday, February 11 at 11:20 a.m.

Since 1851, the red spires of Grace Episcopal Church have peeked above the skyline of Middleway. For residents of the historic, eighteenth-century village, it is a space that remains full of life — made clear by a community advocacy gathering held on the evening of Jan. 31. 

Shedding their rainwear, dozens of residents settled into the church’s squat wooden pews to hear about a water bottling plant proposed just a short walk from Middleway’s tiny village center.

The Jefferson County community has been embroiled in a months-long dispute over the proposed construction of Mountain Pure Water Bottling Facility, a one-million-square-foot plant that would extract and package local groundwater. For months, residents have raised concerns about the project’s environmental, safety and historic preservation impacts.

Sidewinder Enterprises, the company behind the project, set forth an initial plan in November, but the Jefferson County Planning Commission ruled it incomplete, delaying it from advancing. After months of anticipation, the commission will review a revised concept plan for the project March 11.

Members of the Jefferson County community who oppose the plan have spent months voicing their dissent through community forums and letter-writing campaigns to local elected officials. As the day for the commission’s decision nears, events like the late January advocacy gathering have provided the community an opportunity to use art and local history to show why Middleway warrants protection.

Protesting Through Song

Molly Sutter is a graduate student in Appalachian studies at Shepherd University. She wrote a song entitled “Mountain Pure” to express her worries about the project, and performed it during the gathering alongside fellow Jefferson County resident and postal clerk Jen Fisher.

“Mountain Pure, Mountain Pure. Make a problem, sell a cure,” they sang. “Leave the water for the people, and we’ll keep our mountains pure.”

“When I was looking at the Mountain Pure project, some of the things that they say are that they’re producing clean water and that they’re creating clean water,” Sutter explained. “Those are just such funny words to use for extracting water and taking it from farmers and from our community. So, a song kind of snowballed from there.”

Sutter said channeling public frustration into song feels natural in a state where music and culture has long informed activism.

“The state has a long history of protest and engagement, especially through music. I am a songwriter and singer, and I see that intersecting with my studies,” she said. “I’ll listen to a lecture about coal mining, and then I’ll go and write a song about it, because it just fires me up and I like to plug into that legacy.”

Fisher lives on the Opequon Creek, a tributary stream that feeds into Middleway’s waterways. She said in an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting that her participation in the gathering stemmed from concerns over water access for the local community.

“I see water as a basic need; as life. I don’t see this as a political issue or a revolutionary idea. It’s a self-evident truth,” Fisher wrote. “Since when did having water for your farm or your family become optional? These people have real worries, and as their neighbor, I worry with them.”

Residents Voice Frustrations Through Music

Highlighting Local History

Music is not the only way residents are channeling West Virginia history into their opposition to the Mountain Pure project.

The Middleway Conservancy Association is a local nonprofit aimed at protecting the history and environmental health of the village.

Before the gathering, Conservancy President Jessie Norris offered a tour of the community’s nineteenth-century architecture — part of Jefferson County’s history she says is at risk.

“The pipeline that’s actually going to be coming in from the proposed bottling plant is going to come down this road right here, Old Middleway Road,” she said on the tour, gesturing at a street that passes through the historic village center. “It’s going to cut through here on East Street.”

The Mountain Pure facility would require pipelines to travel beneath the village’s centuries-old streets, connecting local waterways to an abandoned manufacturing site formerly operated by 3M.

Former industrial use at the site left behind a plume of toxic chemicals, and many residents have expressed concern that resumed industrial activity could produce toxic runoff for Middleway. Project representatives have repeatedly denied the possibility of chemical contaminants spreading.

After the gathering, residents were invited into Middleway’s Union Church. Local historians showed off Civil War-era artifacts collected around town, and maps of battle sites just a walking distance away.

Stacy Chapman is a nurse and Middleway resident. She’s also a lead organizer with Protect Middleway. The local activist group formed to push back against plans for the Mountain Pure project, and helped lead the advocacy gathering.

“It’s about the community and the community coming together,” Chapman said. “We feel like, with the strength of the community, that we will have a voice together, that the planning commission will hear us and listen to our concerns and deny the bottling plant’s concept plan.”

Chapman said Protect Middleway has received support from regional organizations that share that mission including Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a clean-water public interest law group, and the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, which advocates for the protection of historic buildings.

Danielle Parker is the Preservation Alliance’s executive director. She said protecting Middleway’s historic integrity is a benefit to West Virginia and beyond.

“Middleway is a very rare historic treasure, not only for the state but the entire nation,” Parker said. “It has survived almost three centuries of growth and decline, and we feel that the water bottling facility, if it’s constructed as proposed, is threatening the longevity [and] the continued preservation of the village.”

In late January, the Preservation Alliance added the Middleway Historic District to its West Virginia Endangered Properties List. The list aims to highlight historic sites that are in danger of being destroyed.

Parker said it is rare to see so many community members rally around a preservation effort.

“I am overwhelmed, honestly, with the turnout. I am surprised that the whole church was filled, even up in the higher pews,” she said after the gathering. “There have been very few places [where] we’ve seen such a groundswell of citizen support to save a historic site like we’re seeing here in Middleway.”

“That is very encouraging, because, as I have said, we feel that public opinion can sway the future of a situation,” she added.

The Road Ahead

Sidewinder Enterprises denies that the project would have a detrimental impact on historic preservation and traffic.

Sean Masterson is a partner for Mountain Pure. In an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting he provided through a media representative, Masterson pointed to the past usage of the manufacturing site by other companies as proof. He also said the project has received approval from state highway officials.

“Since the 1960s, 3M and Kodak operated successfully with employee and distribution traffic traveling directly through Middleway daily,” Masterson said. “Additionally, West Virginia owns the nearby roads. A traffic study was done by a third party and the West Virginia Department of Highways approved the study.”

But folks like Chapman maintain that environmental risks, an increase in traffic and the toll of the pipeline’s construction put historic Middleway at risk.

“Middleway needs protection from Sidewinder’s Mountain Pure bottling plant,” she said. “It’s going to affect our water supply. We’re worried about some toxins that could come into our drinking water. We’re worried about how the traffic will affect historic Middleway. We’re concerned about the protection for the wetland that could be impacted by the large water extraction.”

These differing perspectives will come to a head on Tuesday, when the Jefferson County Planning Commission will review revised plans for the Mountain Pure bottling site.

The path for the project so far has been rocky. Project representatives shared an initial concept plan for the plant with the commission in November. But the commission unanimously agreed it was incomplete, because it omitted details about the parcels of land water would be extracted from.

Project representatives quickly resubmitted a revised version of the plan, and hoped to discuss it on Dec. 17. However, the review process was postponed by a circuit court judge, who said the project team and the planning commission had not given residents enough time to review the plan.

Next month, the commission could vote to advance the concept plan as is, require changes to comply with county and state code, or reject it outright. If they reject it, they would need to explain how the project violates state and county policies, and could face legal intervention.

The planning commission is scheduled to review the concept plan for Mountain Pure Water Bottling Plant on March 11. Residents will have the opportunity to provide comments at the meeting.

**Editor’s note: The Jefferson County Planning Commission was initially scheduled to review the revised concept plan for Mountain Pure Water Bottling Facility on Feb. 11. However, due to winter weather, the hearing was postponed to March 11. This story was updated to reflect the meeting’s postponement.