Many of the areas that saw flooding Monday are on track for more rain Tuesday and into the night.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Many of the areas that saw flooding Monday are on track for more rain Tuesday and into the night.
Jennifer Berryman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said light rain is expected thoughout the day in central and southern West Virginia with heavier rain possible into the evening.
The Division of Emergency Management, National Guard, Metro 911, Emergency Operations Center and the National Weather Service are all standing by waiting to see what storms develop and where.
There is a 60-80 percent chance of rain over central, eastern and southern West Virginia. Berryman said that storms are tracking to cross over Charleston up to Clarksburg, and other cells to move over Fayette County down to McDowell County.
She said that the weather service still doesn’t know how much precipitation these fronts will deliver to those areas.
Kanawha County Commissioner Lance Wheeler was at the Emergency Operations Center at Kanawha County Metro 911 Monday and said that those agencies are fully staffed and ready to assist if another heavy rain does cause more flooding.
“The big question is — is the storm front going to move though or is it going to hover over the area and drop a lot of rain?” said Wheeler.
He said after four days of rain the soil is completely saturated.
“The ground can only take so much water,” Wheeler said. “When this rain comes a third time, it’s going to roll right off the hill and it’s going to fill in these valleys and this river, and it’s going to bring that water level even higher. So, what we could see is maybe less rain coming in, but more potential for hazard.”
Wheeler advised residents not to underestimate the potential danger and to have a plan for Tuesday evening if there are more floods.
“So, we told people, take this seriously, this isn’t like your casual floods that you’ve seen in the past. This is the most rain many of these areas have seen in a lifetime,” Wheeler said.
He encouraged residents to listen for flood alert sirens and stay vigilant of any flooding even if it is not yet at the door. He cautioned the water can rise quickly. He also advised to not cross any streams and instead call for a water rescue.
Wheeler said before they can start cleaning up and assessing damage, they are putting resources towards preparedness for another possible heavy rainfall.
West Virginia’s National Guard’s Edwin “Bo” Wriston said they are reaching out to see if they are needed for immediate help but are not doing damage assessments at this time.
Wriston said they are waiting to see what the storm front brings and if the governor calls them back into action.
Located within the rugged Chestnut Ridge community of Philippi, their headquarters is known as the “Epicenter.” Created with sustainability in mind, over the years New Vision evolved into an international organization helping people living without electricity.
West Virginia-produced hand-held solar kits with the ability to charge cell phones are bringing light and hope to families in war-torn Ukraine.
New Vision Renewable Energy in Barbour County started out as a Christian Community Development organization, providing job training for young adults and at-risk youth.
“We believe that a single action can make a difference in the community, and that collective action can greatly impact the world, ” said President and CEO of New Vision Renewable Energy, Ruston Seaman. When you do community development work, it’s like good gardening. You spend a lot of time making the soil of a community better.”
New Vision Renewable Energy’s job training program includes people from the local community.
Credit: Caroline MacGregor/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Located within the rugged Chestnut Ridge community of Philippi, their headquarters is known as the “Epicenter.”Created with sustainability in mind, over the years, New Vision evolved into an international organization helping people living without electricity.
History Of New Vision Renewable Energy
Co-founded by John Prusa, who was born in former Czechoslovakia, the nonprofit promotes solar and renewable energy. Since 2011, it has sent its Ray of Life portable solar units into the developing world.
Prusa’s friendship with president and CEO of New Vision, Ruston Seaman, extends way back. The two met in Philippi, where Seaman serves a dual role as pastor of the People’s Chapel Church.
Shortly before Prusa’s death earlier this year, he turned his attention to Ukraine, where rockets and missile strikes rain down daily, destroying the electric grid. The barrage has left millions of displaced families to survive in basements without power, light or heat.
The Mariupol Chaplains Battalion delivers supplies and Ray of Life solar units to people taking refuge in a basement in Gulyaipole, Ukraine. Video courtesy of Vadim. S.
Ukraine was an immediate connection for Prusa, whose family had suffered under the onslaught of Russian aggression during the Prague spring of 1968.
“He became a refugee and came to America and lived in Philippi. His whole journey was connected to the Russians and the overthrowing of his own country,” Seaman said. “His dad was a Baptist pastor when the Russians overthrew Czechoslovakia.”
An electrical engineer by profession, early on, Prusa mastered the art of making do with little.
“John’s dad got thrown in prison, and as a boy he became desperately poor, but also he would take broken things and fix them,” Seaman said.
Prusa was the owner of several European patents. An inventor, for years he fueled his vehicles with cooking oil, refusing to pay for gas.
It was this energy independence that guided Prusa’s design of the Ray of Life solar unit — a four pound, self-contained kit equipped with a phone charger.
The John and Kathy Prusa Science and Technology Center was funded by the Peoples Chapel Church and is where the first solar unit was built.
Lauren Edge and Shelby Luff holding a solar panel that will be installed into the Ray of Life units.
Credit: Caroline MacGregor/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
”So this is our multipurpose center where we have a lot of our operations,” Seaman said. “We’re going down around the corner to where we’re making lights. We make about 40 percent of all of our electricity at our community center.”
Inside, light components and Ukrainian flag stickers line a long wooden workbench waiting to be assembled.
“So we’re entering in, this is a brand new workshop that we have actually built for this particular needed product, and it’s dedicated to John and Kathy Prusa,” Seaman said. “They’re the renewable scientists that have helped us.”
About midway through the workshop, Seaman points to a picture on the wall, nostalgia written on his face as he speaks of his former friend and mentor.
New Vision Renewable Energy Co-Founder John Prusa was born in the former Czechoslovakia.
Credit: Ruston Seaman, New Vision Renewable Energy
“So this is John Prusa, he’s the person who kind of gave us our initial training, and so these four lights that we’re going to make today will go on the next trip to Ukraine,” Seaman said. “Each one of our staff members will be able to assign something that they learned how to make.”
Ray Of Life Solar Units
The Ray of Life unit has four basic components: a solar panel, lithium ion batteries, three LED light strips and the housing. The international company 3M, known for tape among other things, helped advise on the reflective paper the LED strands affix to as part of the panel’s design.
“I think Ukraine is similar to West Virginia,” Seaman said. “We’re not the best solar state in the world but we designed our light to where it would have a minimum of five hours of light every night. If it’s a cloudy week you become a little more conservative about how much light you use every day.”
New Vision’s job training program offers employment to local people helping to assemble the Ray of Life solar units.
Credit: Caroline MacGregor/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“We made some changes but the original design was done by John and we wanted to carry on his work,” said Chuck Coleman, an electronics specialist who oversees the assembly of the solar units.
Through extensive research and testing, Coleman, who teaches adult and afterschool classes, was able to extend the life of the rechargeable batteries.
“We’re using a lithium ion battery,” Coleman said. “It’s an extremely good battery in the aspect it holds energy for a long period of time and that energy could last up to 10 hours.”
During their assembly, the batteries are incorporated into the solar unit as part of a job training program that provides income to local residents like 55-year-old Rita Dalton.
Rita Dalton is in charge of soldering the Ray of Life solar units at New Vision Renewable Energy.
Credit: Shelby Luff/New Vision Renewable Energy
Dalton has a special knack for soldering the lights which requires good dexterity.
“The soldering part on the lights you have to cut ‘em so long and put like the ends and you have a soldering kit and you have to solder each little piece to make the lights work,” she said.
As she works, Dalton’s thoughts are with the people of Ukraine. She knows firsthand what it’s like to live without power.
“Before I learned how to do this here, I lived probably three years with my children without electricity. I would have loved to have one of them back them,” Dalton said. “When I’m making them, I think about that and the people in the war hiding and what it means to be able to see.”
The solar units are constructed with the harsh living conditions of Ukraine in mind. Seaman said each unit is thoroughly inspected to ensure that it holds up.
Components for the Ray of Life solar units line a workbench inside the John and Kathy Prusa Technology Center.
Credit: Caroline MacGregor/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“We know when it goes to the war front, if it falls apart nobody is going to benefit,” Seaman said. “So we work extra hard to make sure we have a quality product to send.”
Making Connections
Before COVID-19, the Ray of Life units were sent to countries without electricity, usually with church mission teams traveling to developing parts of the world.
“As you know, COVID happened, it changed the world of supply chains and everything,” Seaman said. “Our organization, pre-COVID, has produced about 4,000 of these lights, and they’re in 39 countries.”
During the pandemic, production stalled and remained dormant until a call from Seaman’s longtime friend Dave Nonnemacher, who heads up New Horizons Foundation-USA, serving primarily Romania and Moldova.
He’d visited Ukraine shortly after the war broke out.
The Mariupol Chaplain’s Battalion walking outside a bombed building in Dobropol, Ukraine. Video courtesy of Vadim. S.
“They had no power, period,” Nonnemacher said. “You know, one of the things we’ve landed on is light brings hope, and hope keeps people alive. To be able to read to your kids, to cook a meal with some light, it’s a really powerful metaphor.”
In eastern Europe, Nonnemacher worked with Joel Burkum, the director of For God’s Children International (FGIC). The two joined forces to deliver supplies to refugees crossing Ukraine’s southwestern border into neighboring Moldova.
Back in America, Nonnemacher lay awake at night wondering what he could do to help the people of Ukraine.
Dave Nonnemacher is the director of New Horizons Foundation-USA, MN. Here he is seen delivering supplies to Ukraine.
Credit: Vadim S.
“I was doing my morning swim, and the thought popped into my mind, ‘I wonder if Ruston is still making lights?’” Nonnemacher said. “So I called him and pretty quickly we had plane tickets to go back. Ruston got 10 complete lights for me and I took them over there in March, we were able to get back into Ukraine. The people in Odesa got them to people who don’t have access to electricity.”
Nonnemacher was introduced to Vlad — an FGCI staff member who travels 750 miles each week transporting Ukrainians across the Moldovan border into places like Chisinau. And Vadim — a pastor who was in Kyiv when the war started.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting is withholding both men’s last names for their safety.
Journey Into Ukraine With The Mariupol Chaplains Battalion
Vadim helped Nonnemacher by arranging several forays into areas of Ukraine. The two traveled alongside the Mariupol Chaplains Battalion, volunteers who risk their lives daily to support the military, evacuate citizens and bring supplies and comfort to those in need.
One of those includes a woman with a shock of red hair who lives 5 kilometers from the front. A huge smile lighting up her face, she excitedly expresses her gratitude for the gift of a Ray of Life solar unit.
Video taken by Vadim S.
(Translated) “Thank you very much for these lamps,” she said. “We will now be able to charge our cell phones and from now on we will have light. They are very useful lamps. Thank you very much.”
Vadim and Nonnemacher plan their trips based on the number of solar units, provisions, cash and vehicles.
“Like what vehicle we’ll need, so we’re going to have a van,” Nonnemacher said. “The other question, how much do I have so he knows what he can buy and how far we can go and the areas in Ukraine he knows people need supplies.”
Ray Of Life Sponsors
The sponsors of the Ray of Life units complete the final assembly. Each solar unit costs $125 to build. For another $25, a separate VF-100 lightweight portable water filter is included with each kit.
Sponsors of the units vary and include churches, service clubs like Rotary International, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
“It’s always been a partnership, our light is designed so that people actually peel and stick and put it together as part of the process,” Seaman said. “They sponsor the cost of the light, and then we help them assemble the light to have some skin in the game. The hardest part is getting them from some location across the border to another country.”
Ruston Seamon (standing) oversees assembly of Ray of Life units at United Church of Two Harbors, MN.
Credit: Dave Nonnemacher/New Horizons Foundation-USA
Victoria Karssen with the American Reformed Church in Orange City, Iowa, and Pastor Ryan Donahoe with First Presbyterian Church in Petoskey, Michigan are among those helping to assemble the lights.
Pastor Donahue said his church rallied to build as many lights as possible. They started out with 19 and raised extra money to include water filters.
“Dave ended up sending me all the light kits there were at that point for our youth to put together, and I said, ‘Hey we still have all this money, how many water filters can you buy with this?’” Donahoe said. “So every light kit that will be going over to Ukraine will also have a water filter with it. So, they’ll get both light, power to charge their cell phones, but also a water filter they can use.”
The final touch to each unit includes a blue and yellow adhesive Ukrainian flag that is sealed across the top of the kit and signed by the person who puts it together.
“People are longing for ways to come together and for ways to see the connections. When I say this light kit is going to go to an individual or family in Ukraine, we had the kids sign their names on it,” Donahoe said. “They know this came from a person, it didn’t just get shipped from a business. You put this together with your hands. For people in Ukraine, it’s a way of saying, ‘we know you exist and we’re connected with you.’”
Ukraine refugees building lights at First Reformed Church, Orange City, IA
Credit: Dave Nonnemacher/New Horizons Foundation-USA
Karssen said her Iowa church embraced the idea of helping people in Ukraine.
“One of the families, they have a Ukrainian student in their class and this little gal who’s in grade school was so excited to be building for Ukraine, that she had a connection and then she got to do something,” Karsen said. “It was kind of tricky figuring out what we were doing as a group, but then it kind of all came together.”
Prusa’s Legacy Lives On
Both Seaman and Nonnemacher said it is affirming to know that what is being done in America is helping to support the people of Ukraine.
“Bless these efforts God, may your love and light shine through,” Nonnemacher said in prayer. “John Prusa and his legacy, it continues to have an impact, and will for a long time.”
To sponsor a Ray of Life solar unit for Ukraine, call Ruston Seaman at New Vision Renewable Energy at: 304-669-2191. Or, visit their website at www.nvre.org.
This story was updated on June 16, 2020, at 4:50 p.m. to include a statement from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The rain poured down for hours on Sunday, slamming the valleys of Fayette County with water. As the earth became saturated, local streams swelled.
Minden resident Marie Collins said the water washed out the underpinning of her house.
“We had to sleep in the car last night,” Collins said on Monday.
Weather experts estimate nearby Oak Hill received roughly 5.5 inches of rain in six hours. Minden is just a few miles away and lies in a valley.
“I was too scared to come in the house, because I was afraid my house would come off the foundation,” she said.
The next day, several feet of water surrounded the Collins home. Marie Collins said she noticed an oily substance floating on top that she could smell from inside her home.
PCB has contaminated the soil in Minden, the EPA has said, and residents fear that the chemical is flushed out every time it floods, much like Sunday night.
“I’m scared of [the] water now. I’m just so scared,” Collins said. “And then I have got three boys, a 13-year-old, an 11 and a seven-year-old. I don’t want them to have cancer.”
Credit Marie Collins
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Marie Collins
The floods on Sunday, June 14, in Fayette County washed out the underpinning of the Collins’ house in Minden.
On Tuesday, the EPA said initial inspections “indicate no significant damage” to the cap structure encompassing the dump site, or other structures the EPA has put in place to separate PCB oil from the Minden community.
“There is no indication that capped site material was transported away from the site,” the EPA stated in a press release.
Gov. Jim Justice issued a state of emergency for Fayette County Sunday night, deploying state highway workers to the area to free up debris from the roads and begin repairing some of the more long-lasting damage.
A local state of emergency from the county commission that afternoon specifically named Oak Hill, Scarbro, Minden and Whipple.
Justice said in a virtual press briefing Monday morning there were no known deaths or injuries from the flooding. There were, however, nearly 20 home and car rescues by the local swiftwater rescue team.
Credit Marie Collins
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A rescue boat in Minden, W.Va., helping people with the aftermath of Sunday’s flooding.
Not A First-Time Flood
Annetta Coffman, another lifelong local, recalled a disastrous flood to the area 19 years ago. Every time the water levels rise for smaller, more regular floods that happen every summer, Coffman said residents are afraid to drink locally sourced water or do much outside.
“With oil, it travels because it attaches to mud. Right now, it’s mud and sand everywhere, so it’s hard to tell exactly what the people right now are walking in,” Coffman said of the flood damage Sunday night.
Coffman’s home also flooded several feet high Sunday night, but she said it wasn’t as devastating as the flood in 2001, when she lost her first home and all of her possessions.
“You work so hard. It’s a poor community anyway, and you work to try to have things, and then, something like that can be gone within 30 minutes,” she said.
In addition to the oil, and the expensive loss of having to repair one’s home or find a new one, Coffman said flooding also tends to free up raw sewage.
“And so that now is in our homes,” she said. “People are trying to figure out how to clean up their home. You take the risk of getting Hepatitis A.”
Minden and the surrounding area has also been ravaged by sewage contamination, which the EPA addressed in 2016. According to the report, this was the result of failing and downright non-existent systems to manage human waste. In 2017, a $23 million sewage and water drainage project began in efforts to prevent future contamination by flooding.
But Coffman said many of her neighbors’ houses were flooded with at least two feet of contaminated water Sunday night.
A Developing Response
The Division of Highways entered Fayette County Sunday evening, and will continue working from the area for the next week and a half. Deputy State Highway Engineer Greg Bailey said Monday staff are prioritizing repairs in areas where there are no alternative routes.
“We’re focusing a lot on areas where people are completely blocked and don’t have a way out,” Bailey said Monday.
During his virtual press briefing, Gov. Justice said he anticipated the DOH will have most repairs finished within a week and a half.
Warm Hands From Warm Hearts, a local outreach ministry operating the Center of Hope in Oak Hill, has set up cots in case anyone needs a place to stay. Director Mike Bone said the center also has a shower and a kitchen for anyone in need.
The Red Cross and Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, or VOAD, were gathering buckets of cleaning supplies to donate Monday morning, and assessing the best way to provide assistance, given restrictions from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
As for Marie Collins, whose home sustained permanent damage in 2001 and now again Sunday night, she said she plans to eventually use lime, a powder chemical for flooding, to help battle the smell of oil and sewage in her front yard.
“I’m just so ready to move,” Collins said. “If I had the money to move, I would move.”
This story is part of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Southern Coalfields Reporting Project which is supported by a grant from the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.
Inside Appalachia Associate Producer Eric Douglas began his journalism career in Matewan, West Virginia nearly 30 years ago. He recently revisited the town and sat down with Inside Appalachia Host Jessica Lilly to discuss what has changed and efforts to revitalize the town with tourism.
The downturn of the coal industry hurt Matewan, like much of southern West Virginia. Government records show that there were 3,000 people working in coal mining 30 years ago in Mingo County, bringing in $130 million dollars in wages. Coal accounted for about one-third of all the jobs in the county and more than half of the total income.
Today there are about 1,300 people working in the coal mining industry in Mingo, and $107 million worth of income. Adjusting for inflation, that income level is less than half of what it was in 1991.
Douglas spoke to a number of people and visitors in the town to get their take on the efforts. David Hatfield owns the bed and breakfast in town.
Credit Eric Douglas / WVPB
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WVPB
Coal trucks regularly made their way through downtown Matewan, but the creation of the flood wall reoriented the town.
“Thirty years ago, you had coal trucks running up and down the street here, because the main highway came right through the middle of Mate Street,” he said. He explained they town had all of the traditional businesses, restaurants, and retail.
Hatfield said as coal mining declined in the area, the businesses that served the miners did too.
In 1997, the US Army Corps of Engineers completed a floodwall to protect the town from floods on the Tug River. It stands 30 feet high and surrounds the town as a massive concrete shield.
“When the floodwall was done, they moved the road to main highway back here on the other side of town, so it took the traffic out of the main street here in town and that’s what killed downtown Matewan,” he said.
Now, he said, he views the floodwall as an eventual blessing. Now tourists will be able to walk the downtown area without heavy traffic flowing through town.
On a recent Monday afternoon, father and daughter duo, Bill and Gwynn Powell, from Georgia ate lunch in the Mexican restaurant in Matewan. They were visiting the town for its rich history.
“We came specifically to Matwan because I’d wanted to see the site of the bloody Matewan business,” Bill said. “We will work our way back to Bramwell and to Coalwood and some places like that.”
The “bloody Matewan business” he’s referring to is the Matewan Massacre in 1920, a gunfight on the town streets during a particularly nasty coal mine strike.
Gwynn said she was surprised by the variety of things to see and do as they traveled to places in McDowell and Mingo counties.
“We’ve enjoyed having all the different foods,” she said. “We found an authentic Greek restaurant right there in the middle of Kimball. We pulled off and saw a coal being taken out and put on the train cars and had found abandoned cities.”
Rich Roach from Hagerstown, Maryland has been coming to Matewan for the last several years. He was originally inspired to make the visit by the film Matewan.
The film “Matewan” depicts the strike and the gunfight that Bill Powell referred to. It was directed by John Sayles and premiered in 1987.
“When we got down here, we got more interested in the Hatfields and McCoys component as well as as the Matewan component,” he said.
This story is part of an episode of Inside Appalachia that explores tourism in southern West Virginia and the lasting impacts the Hatfield and McCoy feud has had on the region’s identity.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has told voters in coal-producing Kentucky that it’s possible to be a friend of coal miners and a believer in climate change and the need for cleaner energy sources to combat it.
In blunt terms rarely heard in Kentucky’s political circles, the Vermont senator said Sunday on a stop in Kentucky that bold action is needed to confront the dangers from climate change. That course of action should include turning away from fossil fuels to curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, he said.
“Climate change is real,” Sanders told a crowd of supporters during a speech on Sunday in Louisville. “Climate change is caused by human activity. And climate change is causing devastating harm in our country and throughout the world.”
Sanders said he recognizes that many Kentuckians have long relied on coal mining to support their families.
“So let me be as clear as I can be, coal miners … are not my enemy,” the senator said. “Workers in the fossil fuel industry are not my enemy. Climate change is our enemy.”
Sanders vowed to help communities tied to coal and other fossil fuel industries in the transition toward clean energy production.
The development of wind, solar and other sustainable energy sources will create jobs, as will modernizing the nation’s electricity grid, he said. He pledged support for expansion of high-speed broadband service in rural regions.
“Here is my promise as we transition away from fossil fuel: we will not abandon communities that have relied on fossil fuel jobs,” he said. “We will rebuild those communities.”
Republicans made dramatic inroads in Appalachian “coal country” by tying the coal industry’s declines to increased regulations introduced during former Democratic President Barack Obama’s tenure.
Republican Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for coal helped make that region one of his most fervent bases of support as Trump racked up big wins in West Virginia, Kentucky and other states in 2016 en route to winning the presidency.
Republican National Committee spokesman Kevin Knoth said Sunday that Sanders’ platform would devastate Kentucky in part by eliminating the coal industry.
Sanders warned that failure to combat climate change will result in more extreme weather and more suffering.
“Future generations deserve a planet that is healthy and is habitable, and we have the moral responsibility to make sure that they have that kind of planet,” Sanders said.
The recent rise of oil and gas drilling across West Virginia has raised questions about industry regulation and taxation. Many bear a striking resemblance to similar questions raised about the coal industry in years past.
Ken Ward Jr. is a reporter for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. He’s been writing about the coal industry his entire career. He sees a number of similarities between the coal and natural gas industries and how those industries are regulated.
In the 1950s, then Gov. William C. Marland proposed taxing coal with a 10 cent per ton severance tax. “Let’s use this equitable source of revenue, because whether we like it or not, West Virginia’s hills will be stripped, the bowels of the earth will be mined and the refuse strewn across our valleys and our mountains in the form of burning slate dumps,” he said. The move was considered political suicide.
Academics often discuss the concept of a “resource curse” where places with large amounts of natural resources do not attempt to diversify and then are stuck when those resources run dry. Ward said he doesn’t think it’s inevitable, but in West Virginia we have to work hard to fight it.
Ward recalled one public hearing he attended about mountaintop removal coal mining in which a young man from eastern Kentucky testified against a proposed regulation from the U.S. EPA.
“And you know, he’s a young man, he’s like a kid, really, and he said, ‘If you shut down this mining, there’s nothing for me. That’s the only future I possibly have,'” Ward said. “What a sad sort of thing. I mean, who doesn’t want for their kids any possible future they could imagine?”
Ward said there are other states that have large amounts of natural resources, but they have also planned for downtimes with a “future fund” where money is set aside from the sale of those resources. Alaska is the primary example where everyone in the state gets a check. Most places use the money for infrastructure projects and schools.
The Legislature passed a bill establishing a future fund in West Virginia, but they never funded it.
“They set up all of these little requirements. Well, if the state rainy day fund exceeds this, and if tax collections are XX percentage above this, then we’ll put some money into it, but they’ve never actually put any money in. We have this future fund with no funds,” Ward explained.
Ward said one of the biggest mistakes West Virginia is making right now is attempting to carry out new projects and new developments with the natural gas industry in secret.
“I think it’s really difficult to know if it’s the direction West Virginia should go, when anybody — whether it’s a newspaper reporter, or an environmental activist or a housewife —anybody who tries to just say, ‘Hey, wait a second, let me ask some questions about that’ immediately the reaction [is] ‘Oh, you’re just against jobs’ or “You’re just negative. You’re driving people from West Virginia,'” he said. “I mean, if all of these things are so fantastic for West Virginia, then they will withstand scrutiny.”
