Another year’s legislative session is now behind us, but news of a special session this spring means the West Virginia Legislature won’t be gone for long. In the meantime, we’ll dive into stories on education, including stories on a new study on special education and a group of West Virginia principals visiting the United States Capitol.
Another year’s legislative session is now behind us, but news of a special session this spring means the West Virginia Legislature won’t be gone for long.
In the meantime, we’ll dive into stories on education, including stories on a new study on special education and a group of West Virginia principals visiting the United States Capitol.
Plus, we’ll discuss potential expansions to passenger train services, protections for residents with Long COVID and the return of the beaver to Appalachia.
Finally, we’ll listen to the first installment of a new series on parenting that will explore the most up-to-date advice for infant care.
Jack Walker is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.
West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick and Randy Yohe.
Local conservationists are building fences around trees in wetlands across West Virginia and beyond to protect them from beavers and promote coexistence between species.
Donning rain boots and gloves, volunteers trudged across a Charles Town wetland Tuesday to prepare the habitat for a pair of unexpected residents.
Jefferson County’s Cool Spring Preserve is currently home to at least two beavers, possibly mates, according to local conservationists. If trail camera photos did not offer proof enough, their presence is made clear through bite marks on trees and a growing number of dams in Bullskin Run, the local stream.
Beavers are native to wetlands across North America, including those in West Virginia. But they were hunted to near-extinction during the 18th century fur trade. With fewer people hunting them for their pelts, beavers are growing in population across the continent. According to many conservationists, that’s a good thing.
Alison Zak serves as founder and executive director of the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund. The group develops nonlethal strategies to manage beaver populations across the mid-Atlantic.
Zak said that beavers play a key role in bolstering biodiversity, storing groundwater and filtering pollutants in wetland ecosystems. But they also bring what she describes as “beaver problems,” which fall into two main categories: flooding and tree damage.
When beavers build dams, they can redirect the flow of water and prompt flooding. This can disturb roadways and personal property, so conservationists often fence off culverts so beavers cannot disrupt the flow of water with their dams.
Dams have appeared along Bullskin Run, a stream that cuts through Cool Spring Preserve in Charles Town. Local conservationists say it is the work of a pair of beavers. Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Beavers can also chew trees that protect rivers from erosion, as well as saplings planted as part of reforestation efforts. In response, conservationists build wire fences around the bases of trees that need to be protected from local beavers.
That is what brought a team of volunteers onto the preserve Tuesday: to help build fences that ensure trees and beavers can coexist in West Virginia and to strengthen wetland ecosystems.
“A lot of people aren’t aware beavers are around unless, all of a sudden, they come across very obvious signs of beavers, maybe even causing problems on their property,” Zak said. “But also, we’re seeing an increase in tolerance toward beavers, and people wanting to use nonlethal management and wanting to coexist.”
Tuesday’s volunteers placed new wire frames around the bases of trees with overly tight fences or no fences at all. They took particular care to cover saplings, and to give trees enough space to grow freely.
KC Walters, associate director of conservation at Potomac Valley Audubon Society, organized Tuesday’s event. She said that coexistence strategies like these help people come together to solve environmental problems.
“It’s not just conservation, and not just about the relationship with wildlife,” she said. “It’s also about the relationships of the human organizations that exist in keeping us all working together for a common goal.”
Zak said she hopes volunteers left Tuesday’s event with a better understanding of how conservation works.
“I hope they got a little taste of how complex it can be, but how also doable it is,” she said.
Lily Davis unlinks segments of an old wire fence around the base of a tree at Cool Spring Preserve in Charles Town. Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The National Mine Health and Safety Academy opened at Beaver, near Beckley, on August 17, 1976. The 80-acre campus, which can accommodate 600 students, is the largest in the world devoted solely to mine safety and health.
It is the central training facility for federal mine inspectors and mine safety professionals, with a stated goal of reducing accidents and improving miners’ health and safety.
In addition to coal miners, the academy also serves those who mine sand and gravel, gold, silver, copper, uranium, and other minerals.
The academy is operated by the Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. About 28,000 students attend annually—an average of 200 to 300 daily. In response to growing international concern about mine health and safety, the academy has expanded to address the health and safety of miners worldwide. Cooperative programs allow representatives and inspectors from other nations to participate in health and safety classes, training programs, and activities. International visitors to the National Mine Health and Safety Academy have included delegations from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, China, Thailand, and South Africa.
Federal regulators are holding a stakeholders meeting in Raleigh County on a new coal dust rule.
The outreach meeting for the mining industry is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beaver.
The rule went into effect in August 2014. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration says the rule is part of the Labor Department’s effort to end black lung disease caused by prolonged exposure to coal mine dust.
By February 1, 2016, continuous personal dust monitors must be used to monitor occupations exposed to the highest concentrations and all miners with evidence of black lung. Increased sampling frequency provisions are to go into effect at the same time.
