Coalfields Story Archives - Page 2 of 2 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Can Ginseng Help Diversify W.Va.'s Economy? Part I

The War on Coal, pressures from natural gas development, crumbling infrastructure, whatever you want to blame it on – jobs are becoming more and more scarce these days in communities dependent on coal. As a result, some folks are reaching back to their roots, literally and figuratively, to make ends meet – just as they have for generations. And there’s some big money there. Especially harvesting ginseng. But can plants like ginseng play a significant role in our economy today? Enquiring minds would like to know…

“The top five counties [producing ginseng] last year were Mingo, Wyoming, Logan, Randolph, and Mcdowell,” said West Virginia Division of Forestry’s Ginseng Coordinator, Robin Black.

For over 25 years, her role has been to monitor the industry. She says last year over 7,000 pounds were harvested. At last year’s average price of $750/pound, $5.5 million came into the state.

“The miners use that ginseng to pay bills, give them a Christmas, and that kind of stuff,” Black said. “So in southern coalfields, that’s big extra money that they can get during a small time period.”

But can ginseng play a more significant role in our economy? To answer that question, we have to understand some of the driving economic factors – the most important being that the most valuable ginseng roots are those that grow in Appalachian forests.

There are BASICALLY, three types of root:

1. Wild

Wild seng is the good stuff. It’s the root that Asian markets will pay TOP dollar for (just as it has for the past 300 years).

“Wild plants tend to grow really slowly, their whole life history is very slow so it takes a long time for them to even get big enough to produce a single seed,” said ginseng researcher, ecologist at the Eberly School of Biology at WVU, Jim McGraw.

2. Cultivated

“In the opposite extreme,” McGraw explained, “with extreme cultivation like happens in Wisconsin and Ontario, plants grow very quickly to adult size two to three years you can have plants producing seeds and be quite large…

Cultivated root is sold for a fraction of the price of wild ginseng. You can really tell when seng has been cultivated. The root is all swollen, fat, smooth, and white compared to wild seng which is scrawny, tortured, and dark.

3. Forest-Grown

Some mountain-folk have found that planting ginseng seeds in a more natural or wild setting produces a root that will fetch a more competitive price.

“These forest grown plants where people are actually planting seeds in the woods,” McGraw said, “they tend to be a little more like wild, but it depends what they do to them…”

So depending on the growing techniques, this forest-grown ginseng crop could be a game-changer, according to industry experts, academics, and others involved with ginseng.

Harding’s Ginseng

Larry Harding is one example of someone who has made a comfortable career forest-growing.

“There’s not a person on this earth that could say that that’s not wild ginseng,” Harding said holding up a root he grew, “But that’s not wild ginseng. We planted that ginseng here on the farm.”

Harding’s father started his ginseng farm fifty years ago, just outside of Friendsville, Maryland. That’s just over the West Virginia border. The laws are a little different in Maryland, but Harding says each year he harvests 500 – 2,000 pounds of dry ginseng from over 80 acres of steep, forested land. It’s enough to provide Harding’s main source of income. And the price he can get for his forest-grown root compared to wild root?

“The difference in price when you’re talking about root like this? Little to none,” Harding said standing over a pile of roots.

Harding markets his product as having “wild characteristics, taste, color, and texture.” He says it’s the quality of this forest-grown sang that fetches funds comparable to that of wild sang.

Water Outages and Advisories Continue in W.Va. Coalfields

While the chemical spill in Charleston left more than 300,000 without usable water, it’s a problem that folks in the coalfields deal with on a regular basis.

Mountainous regions like southern West Virginia have an abundance of water, but the terrain along with aging infrastructure create challenges, just as it has for decades.

Many of the current water systems in place today in the coalfields were installed in the early 1900’s by coal companies. The coal operators, jobs, and most people left the area, leaving remnants behind of a once bustling economy. Remnants like some beautiful buildings, coal tipples …and water systems.

For some communities a boil water advisory is a way of life … like in Keystone in McDowell County where residents have been on advisory since 2010. Neighboring sister city of Northfork has been on a boil water advisory since 2013. The water systems are currently maintained and operated by individual towns, but the McDowell County Public Service District is planning projects to take on those responsibilities.

Elkhorn Water Project

Just this past year, a project with several phases started that is expected to bring relief to the region.

Phase I of the “Elkhorn Water Project” will bring a new water system to Elkhorn, Maybeurry and Switchback. Phase II will replace systems in Elkhorn, Keystone and Northfork and Phase III will upgrade systems in Landgraff, Tidewater, Divian, Kimball.

Elkhorn Water Project broke ground summer 2014.

Phase I broke ground this year and is expected to be complete in June. Executive Director of the McDowell County PSD Mavis Brewster says she’s happy with the progress. She says the second phase has not yet been funded. That’s where Betty Younger lives.

Betty Younger: Times have Changed

A coal miner’s daughter, Betty Younger grew up in McDowell County and remembers a very different community during the 1950’s. Younger sits on her front porch which sits close to route 5–a road busy with coal trucks. She reminisces about her days in the Kyle coal camp.

Like so many coal-dependent communities, McDowell has suffered the boom and bust of the industry, and the sharp population decline that comes with it. In the 1950’s there were more than 100-thousand people. Today less 20-thousand remain in the county.

“This part of McDowell County is… I mean there’s nothing here,” Younger said.

Younger has lived in her Elkhorn homes for about six years. There have been so many water issues… she just assumes not to drink it, rarely uses it for cooking, and doesn’t even count on regular access.

“You never know when you’re going to have water,” Younger said.

Phase II will also replace systems in Northfork and Keystone. Folks in Keystone have been on a boil water advisory since 2010, while Northfork has been under an advisory since 2013.

Elkhorn water tower believed to be at least 60 years old.

When all three phases are complete, the project will replace the system that Younger and other residents currently rely on. Phase I will replace a leaky, rusty, tank that is believed to date back to the 1940’s when it was set up by coal companies.

A water project in Wyoming County began last year when residents in Bud and Alpoca (including an elementary school) were caught in the middle of a tangled and complicated water system deal. After months under a boil water advisory, a project to bring residents dependable, clean water is now underway.

Author Homer Hickam Visits His Home State

Every October, author and West Virginia native, Homer Hickam, makes a trip home to West Virginia for the annual Rocket Boys festival in Beckley…but he also makes a point to stop in on his hometown of Coalwood in McDowell County during his visit.

Hickam grew up in the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia during the 1940s and 50s, when Coalwood was a busy company town and Sputnik was first launched in space. It was his childhood experiences that inspired him to write his famously known memoir, Rocket Boys later adapted into the film, October Sky. Since then, Hickam has written an array of novels including genres in science fiction, military, stories on Coalwood, and much more.

His newest work, just sent to his publisher, features a family legend about an alligator his mother raised in West Virginia in 1935, named Albert.

“My dad said, it’s either me or that alligator, Elsie, and mom, after a few days of thinking about it, said okay, but we have to let Albert go back to Florida,” Hickam said, “And so they had this awe-inspiring, sometimes funny, sometimes sad journey from Coalwood, West Virginia to Orlando, Florida.”

Hickam says he first heard about his family’s legend when he was a boy watching the television show, Davy Crockett.

“I was watching it back in the mid-1950s and my mom walked in, and looked and said, I know him, and turned around and walked out. It turned out that she was looking at Buddy Ebsen, who later played the Uncle Jed in Beverley Hillbillies.”

Hickam says Ebsen and his mom dated when she went to Florida after graduating high school, but they later became friends. When she married Hickam’s dad, Ebsen sent her a very interesting gift.

“Buddy’s wedding gift to my mom was that alligator. And so, I started over the years to try to find out more about Albert, and ultimately it became a family legend about their journey.”

Hickam’s newest novel, Carrying Albert Home should be available around Fall of next year.

Hickam resides with his wife, Linda at their home in Alabama throughout most of the year, but during his annual trip back to West Virginia, Hickam says he always makes a stop to visit his hometown of Coalwood.

While Hickam says he’s always happy to visit home, he says Coalwood has drastically changed from the time he was a boy and sadly not for the better.

“Now, unfortunately, with the coal industry the way it is, Coalwood is just a shell of what it used to be, and it’s kind of sad when I go there. McDowell County, the population is about a quarter, I think now, of what it was when I grew up there, so obviously there are a lot of empty houses with trees growing up through them. The infrastructure has collapsed.”

Although Hickam is concerned for his hometown, he says the people haven’t lost faith.

“The people there are strong, they’re intelligent, and they are working hard trying to bring the county back to some semblance of what it used to be.”

Hickam continues to make a point to visit home annually, and he hopes that through the scholarships he has available at Marshall University and Virginia Tech that more kids in the coalfields will go to college.

Apart from being an author, Hickam worked for NASA as an aerospace engineer for seventeen years. Now, he continues to show his love of Space and rockets not only through his writing, but by working at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

Hickam is on the Board of this STEM based camp. He says they don’t get enough West Virginia kids, but he does see many West Virginia teachers that attend workshops hosted by the camp.

Hickam thinks educators in West Virginia and Appalachia who are involved in STEM teachings are doing a good job. He says however, that ultimately, success comes down to the commitment of teachers and parents rather than just the technologies available today.

“In my Coalwood school, my class, over 90% of my class went to and graduated from college. We didn’t have computers, the teachers had nothing but books and a blackboard and a piece of chalk, yet when I graduated from high school, I was well-prepared to go off to Virginia Tech and to the engineering school. Much better than a lot of the kids that were coming out of Richmond and Roanoke and Washington, DC, and you know the big schools like that. Why? Because we had dedicated teachers, and we had parents who were fully engaged in the education process.”

Hickam says after writing Rocket Boys, he never expected it to have the impact it’s had on West Virginia and the Appalachia’s, and he’s humbled so many people identify with his story.

“When you write about West Virginia and the coalfields and so on, the easiest thing in the world is to write about the poverty and the hardship and the struggle, and all that kind of thing…but what I write about is the optimism of the people, and the good life that they have crafted in the coalfields of West Virginia and the pride that they have in the state.”

Homer Hickam may no longer live in the state where he grew up, but he constantly recognizes and credits his West Virginia roots for making him who he is today.