Two conservation groups are joining forces to preserve battlefield land at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
The Civil War Trust and the National Parks Conservation Association said the public-private partnership will protect nearly four acres at the site.
Officials say the land played a significant role in in the September 1862 Battle of Harpers Ferry, which resulted in the largest surrender of Union troops during the Civil War.
The purchase was financed by federal funds, a major gift from an anonymous donor and a number of smaller private donations.
The Bank of Charles Town also agreed to sell much of the land to the Civil War Trust for eventual transfer to the National Park Service.
More than 250,000 visitors travel to Harpers Ferry annually.
The utility’s website shows most of the outages are in southern West Virginia. As of 8:25 a.m. Monday, there are 7,900 outages in Mercer County and more than 3,500 in Raleigh County.
Smaller outages have occurred in Cabell, Fayette, Greenbrier, McDowell, Summers and Wyoming counties.
CONSOL Energy Inc. says it has completed the sale of subsidiary Consolidation Coal Company to Murray Energy.
The sale includes five longwall mines in West Virginia. They include the McElroy, Shoemaker, Robinson Run, Loveridge and Blacksville No. 2 mines.
The deal also gives Ohio-basedMurray Energy about 1.1 billion tons of coal reserves.
Murray Energy paid $850 million in cash and will take $2.4 billion in liabilities off CONSOL’s balance sheets.
Pennsylvania-based CONSOL said Thursday in a news release that Murray Energy also is taking on its pension obligations with the United Mine Workers of America.
The West Virginia mines produced a combined 28.5 million tons of thermal coal in 2012.
Two companies are proposing to build a hydroelectric power plant at the Pike Island Locks and Dam along the Ohio River in Wheeling.
American Municipal Power and Free Flow Power Project have submitted competing preliminary permit applications for the project, which must be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The project would generate up to 256,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually.
The project is being proposed as American Electric Power prepares to close its coal-fired Kammer Plant near Moundsville by the end of next year.
Columbus, Ohio-based American Municipal Power currently operates the New Martinsville Hydroelectric Plant at the Hannibal Locks and Dam. Free Flow Power Project is based in Boston.
Wednesday is the 45th anniversary of a mine explosion in Farmington, W.Va., that claimed the lives of 78 men. Time Trail, West Virginia, from the state…
Wednesday is the 45th anniversary of a mine explosion in Farmington, W.Va., that claimed the lives of 78 men. Time Trail, West Virginia, from the state Division of Culture and History, describes what happened that day.
November 20, 1968: The Farmington mine disaster
After an explosion tore through Consolidation Coal Company’s Number 9 mine in Farmington, there was still hope that miners trapped below ground found a way to survive.
The explosion occurred early on the morning of November 20, 1968. Flames and smoke shot out through the mine’s Lewellyn and Mod’s Run portals. Twenty-one miners were rescued but many others were trapped.
The evening of the explosion, William Poundstone, a Consol vice president, said rescue efforts couldn’t be mounted right away because of the fire.
"We expect no major developments during the night simply because we must wait until the flames die down. Our best estimate is that at least 70 miners are still trapped inside the mine. We do have on hand the best and most skilled mine rescue teams that are available in the country. They are standing by. But we feel that at this time we cannot send them in to commence rescue operations because of the fire."
Seventy-eight miners were trapped in the mine after the initial explosion. After several more explosions and increasing smoke and flames, it became more evident that rescue crews would have to wait.
My own personal concern has been to try to work with the federal bureau and the state people to make the proper moves to get this fire under control and get ourselves in a position so we can send rescue men in to rescue these miners. I know that the mine workers' organization is at work in this regard," said Poundstone.
After a few days, two rescue teams entered the mine. But, after about four hours of searching, they encountered enough methane to blow the mine again so they were ordered out. Officials finally came to the difficult conclusion that the 78 trapped miners were dead and decided the mine should be sealed so the fire could be put out.
The existence of today’s Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is due, in large part, to the Farmington mine disaster.
State lawmakers say they’re starting to broaden their focus of the state’s water resources from not just protecting it, but also managing it.
During a legislative interim meeting in Charleston, legislators considered the thoughts of scientists and industry leaders regarding waste water management in the natural gas sector.
“Fresh water is becoming more and more of an issue not just here in West Virginia and Appalachia, but throughout the country and throughout the world. It’s becoming scarcer,” said Senate Majority Leader John Unger as he began the discussion during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on state Water Resources.
“I think we’ve been blessed with this water resource because we do have an abundance of it, but it’s also finite, it’s not infinite and we want to leverage it for economic development. So, we want to be able to utilize this to be able to attract companies into our state and to better manage it.”
Even though water isn’t the main attraction for industry in the state, drilling for natural gas in northern West Virginia depends on the availability of the resource.
According to recent research, each Marcellus well in West Virginia requires the injection of about 5 million gallons of water.
Water is mixed with various chemicals, pressurized, and pumped down into wells to release the gas from the Marcellus shale during the fracking process, making water a critical component.
“There will never be a well drilled in the Appalachian basin without water management,” Rick Zickefoose, vice president of operations for GreenHunter Water, told the committee.
“You’ve got to have water, you’ve got to manage the water, you’ve got to know where you’re going to get it to begin with and know what to do with it when it’s done.”
And when it is done, that’s when GreenHunter’s work begins.
The company trucks used frack water from drilling sites in West Virginia and Ohio to one of their 5 disposal wells in West Virginia, Ohio or Kentucky, or one of their holding facilities to await injection.
Zickefoose said they inject around 75,000 barrels of the waste water a week, or about 750 truck loads, but now, the company wants to diversify their waste water management methods.
Credit Ashton Marra
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Vice President of Operations for GreenHunter Water Rick Zickefoose testifies before the commission.
“We are taking the steps to go into the water recycling arena,” Zickefoose said.
Water use data collected by the state Department of Environmental Protection reveals that of the 5 million gallons of water injected into each well, only about 8 percent returns to the surface as waste water, or flowback. New recycling practices adopted in the state are diverting about 75 percent of that waste for reuse.
Zickefoose said simply providing the service of processing waste water for reuse isn’t enough for the industry to make the full transition away from fresh water, at least not yet.
Today, oil and gas companies rely on injection wells to dispose of waste water as sanctioned by the state because of something Zickefoose referred to as “cradle to grave regulations.” Basically, the regulations make companies accountable for water from the second they collect it at the fresh water source until it is disposed of at the injection well.
But Melissa Pagen, water treatment specialist for GreenHunter, said they can offer an alternative.
“They drop off their product. We have a tank cleaning on site so they can clean the inside of the tank because that’s regulation. Then they can take water that we’ve already treated,” she said. “That’s taking one extra truck off the road that would have to take water to frack with that we’re providing for free.”
Free treated water, recycled from the used water dropped of by previous trucks. On top of that, trucks that plan to load up with the treated water get a discount on the waste water they drop off.
But Pagen said there is hesitation from the industry on mixing their water with that of other companies at the recycling site and still having the liability if something should happen.
Zickefoose said whether it’s through regulations or a shift in the industry, he still believes the recycling technology his company can offer will be utilized in the near future. So confident, in fact, GreenHunter has already bought a site in Wheeling to build a holding facility and recycling center.
Dr. Ben Stout, a professor of Biology at Wheeling Jesuit University, has been outspoken against the new site because of its location only a mile and a half upstream from the city’s drinking water intake location on the Ohio River.
Credit Ashton Marra
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Dr. Ben Stout, professor of biology at Wheeling Jesuit University.
Stout maintained should an accident occur, it jeopardizes not only the water source for the citizens of Wheeling, but also for millions of other people in cities in West Virginia and other states downstream. He also raised concerns about the additional truck traffic brought into the residential area where the facility would be located.
Stout, however, is a proponent of the recycling program.
“The waste stream is the Achilles’ heal of the industry and so the limit to production is eventually going to be the limit to how fast you can clean up after yourself,” he said.
“So, I think GreenHunter is right on. I support them and I hope they can develop the kind of technologies and processes that would really work.”
Technologies and a process that would really work, he adds, in the proper locations.
Zickefoose said one barge could transport more then 40,000 barrels of water compared to the 100 barrels in a single truck, significantly reducing traffic, wear and tear on infrastructure and pollution.
Stout, who again said he was in favor of GreenHunter’s exploration of recycling technology, said barging is not a better option.
He said when moving the waste water from one transportation container to another; they have to be vented releasing harmful chemicals in to the atmosphere. Stout maintained transferring the liquids from the site to the barge to trucks to the injection wells means more venting and more chemicals being released into the atmosphere.
