Inside Appalachia Story Archives - Page 2 of 115 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Violets Make Medicine, Munchies And Memories

Every spring, violets bloom across Appalachia, a carpet of purple, white and yellow. These unassuming flowers do everything from spruce up a cocktail to fight cancer. Here are a few of the ways herbalists use them for food and medicine.

This story originally aired in the April 14, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Brandy McCann is a self-taught herbalist from Blacksburg, Virginia, who considers violets a personal gift. She was born in late April, when the flowers typically bloom.

It has always delighted McCann that she was born on Earth Day. When her mother went into the hospital, things were a bit dark and dreary, but when she emerged a week later, violets were in bloom.

“So that’s always been a very special thing to me, when I see the violets blooming, every spring around my birthday, I just feel like it’s such a gift from Mother Nature,” McCann says.

McCann enjoys reciprocating the gift of violets by using them to make presents for friends and family. In her sunny kitchen with a view of the flowers growing in her yard, she demonstrates how to make skin toner.

“I have a jar full of dried violets and I harvested them probably a couple of weeks ago. I let them air dry on a towel and put them in the jar,” McCann says. “And then I have here some jojoba oil, or you can use olive oil, any kind of carrier oil that’s good for the skin. And then I pour the oil and fill the jar, leaving just a tiny bit of headspace and then set a lid on it, and give her a good shake out every day.”

For a month or so, McCann says to keep the infused oil in a clean glass jar away from light, heat and dampness. Then strain out the plant material and keep the oil.

Brandy McCann makes skin toner from violets and jojoba oil. She has made gifts from violets for more than a decade.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

That’s one fun project people may want to try with violets, but there are many uses for these flowers. Nica Fraser studied at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. She teaches her daughters herbalism as part of their homeschool curriculum. One of their projects is making violet lavender sugar.

Tastes differ, but Fraser suggests one to two tablespoons of culinary dried lavender combined with two cups of sugar is a good base. To this you can add a fourth- to a half-cup or so of dried violets — leaf and flower, not roots. Start with less and add as you go, then blend the mixture until smooth. Taste, then add anything you think it needs more of.

A blender can be used to make violet sugar. A mortar and pestle will also work.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Learning with violets can be fun, and Fraser particularly likes that the violets add vitamins to the sugar all children love.

“I think per gram, you get about double the dose of vitamin C in a gram of a violet leaf than you do in a gram of an orange. They’re also rich in vitamin A, they’ve got great magnesium content, and they’ve even got calcium in them,” Fraser says.

Fraser’s youngest fills a flower bowl for processing back at the house. Fraser has taught her daughters to forage for spring violets, along with other edible flowers.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

That high vitamin content is also why Fraser likes to watch her daughters pick flowers during playtime — and consume them.

Of her oldest daughter, she says, “One of her favorite things to do is to know that she can just be walking outside playing, take a break, eat some flowers and keep going.”

Fraser learned to love foraging from her grandmother, who taught her as a child to hunt morels.

“She was actually the person who planted that seed in me, that you could find nourishment out in nature.”

It is a seed Fraser delights to see growing in her children as they forage on the family homestead in southeastern Ohio.

“I get to take my two daughters out into the woods, and I teach them what I know, and they are so very interested,” Fraser says. “They light up … they love taking this in and they retain it. They apply it, they ask questions, and it’s just really, really enjoyable to watch these little budding herbalists run around in the yard every day with their inquisitive minds.”

Those minds have retained a great deal of information, even at their tender ages. Fraser asks her kids whether they should eat violets that grow near poison ivy, and they come up with excellent information.

Violets are versatile and vibrant.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

Fraser’s daughters head toward a favorite foraging spot. They have been learning about plants during home school lessons with their mother.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

“We definitely don’t want to pick it because it will put the oils on from the poison ivy,” the girls reply, more or less in chorus. They add not to pick near busy roads where car exhaust would saturate the petals and leaves, or in a barnyard pasture, because — poop.

Keeping all those caveats in mind, violets are still one of the safest flowers for new foragers because they’re so easy to identify.

Dr. Beth Shuler and a patient at Powell Valley Animal Hospital. Shuler studied herbal medicine for animals as a supplement to her licensed veterinary practice.

*Photo Credit: Powell Valley Animal Hospital*

Dr. Beth Shuler, a veterinarian who studied at Purple Moon Herbs and Studies, loves violets.

“They just make me smile. I like that they’re gentle, they’re easy to find,” Shuler says. “It’s so safe and easy to use that you can put it in your cocktail or your salad, but at the same time it’s very strong and powerful enough to help cure cancer.”

Shuler owns Powell Valley Animal Hospital in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and often uses violets in her practice. She says they’re a good herb for breast care in dogs and people.

“Most of the dogs that we would use violets for are dealing with breast cancer, mammary cancer or mastitis,” Shuler says. “We would do a combination of oral treatment with a tincture.”

Violets are also a great cleanser for infected wounds. Shuler’s youngest dog, Sirrus, is about to get a special treat because Shuler wanted the flower power working inside of him. He had cut his foot on some ice, and it was a little bit swollen.

Or, as Shuler puts it, “he’s got mild lymphatic inflammation up in his axillary lymph node draining from that injured toe. So I’m placing some tincture, violet tincture in ethanol, on a corner of a piece of toast.”

Sirrus chows down. Shuler’s pleased by that, adding that giving dogs toast is not a common thing in her household, since bread is not good for dogs as part of a daily diet.

“But it does act as a very nice absorptive sponge for tinctures to go down easily. And less mess,”

Schuler explains that humans and dogs have multiple lymph nodes; think of them as internal trash cans trying to keep the garbage away. When people get sick, lymph nodes under our arms sometimes swell up and ache. But lymph nodes have no pump. Violets are excellent at breaking up and dispelling lymph from our bodies. Just another reason to love it, in Shuler’s opinion. But also a reason to treat it with respect and not eat too many of them at once.

“The violet is very powerful and easy to find. But again it is not a simple herb,” Shuler says.

In other words, don’t go eat a bunch of violets — or rub them on your dog’s feet — and expect either one of you to feel better right away. Shuler’s dog Sirrus got a few days of tincture toast.

Sirrus, the youngest of the Shuler/Tester family dogs, is happy to have eaten violet toast live on the radio. He had a mild cut that became inflamed, so Shuler treated him for a few days with violet tincture.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

“It’s not a one dose and done,” Shuler says. “These are built up in the body as repetitive use, it’s not an overnight fix.”

Literally safe enough for small children to swallow as a snack, violets can clean wounds, fight cancer or spruce up a gin and tonic. Violets are nothing if not versatile.

Violet gin fizzes are wonderful drinks. Shuler made two for drinking in her back garden, as a celebration of violet versatility.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Dr. Beth Shuler and her husband Dr. Brandon Tester both took classes held on the North Carolina coast from Purple Moon Herbs and Studies. She is a veterinarian; he is a chiropractor.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

For a fun list of things to do with violets, check out Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. Remember, never try a new unidentified plant or medicine without first consulting an expert.

——

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.

The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

Chair Caning And Keeping Utilities In Good Shape, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, when your power goes out, water bill comes in or your nearby fire hydrant looks ancient, there’s a state organization keeping tabs on all of that and more. Randy Yohe talks with Charlotte Lane, chair of the West Virginia Public Service Commission, on how this regulating entity balances public protection with keeping utilities viable.

On this West Virginia Morning, you don’t see caned chairs as much as you used to. Cane breaks down with age and there aren’t many people who know how to repair these old chairs. But in Wheeling, there’s a workshop called Seeing Hand, where skilled workers repair old chairs and so much more. For Inside Appalachia, Folkways Reporter Clara Haizlett brings us this story.

Also, in this show, when your power goes out, water bill comes in or your nearby fire hydrant looks ancient, there’s a state organization keeping tabs on all of that and more. Randy Yohe talks with Charlotte Lane, chair of the West Virginia Public Service Commission, on how this regulating entity balances public protection with keeping utilities viable.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Eric Douglas produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

The Many Uses Of Violets And Ed Snodderly Has Our Song Of The Week, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, violets bloom across Appalachia throughout spring, but the flowers are more than just some extra color in the yard. They’ve long been a key ingredient in herbal remedies.

On this West Virginia Morning, violets bloom across Appalachia throughout spring, but the flowers are more than just some extra color in the yard. They’ve long been a key ingredient in herbal remedies. For Inside Appalachia, Folkways Reporter Wendy Welch brings us this story.

Also, in this show, our Mountain Stage Song of the Week comes to us Ed Snodderly, whose songs have been recorded by some of roots music’s most well-known names. We listen to his performance of “Gone with Gone and Long Time,” accompanied by the Mountain Stage Band and Lisa Pattison on fiddle and vocals.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from Marshall Health.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Eric Douglas is our news director. Emily Rice produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

W.Va. Mobile Home Park Tenants Fight A Media Giant

When a new owner took control of a mobile home park in Mercer County, West Virginia, its residents noticed immediate changes. Rents went up, and it seemed like the new owner was doing less to take care of problems like broken windows, or even a sewage leak. So one resident started looking into exactly who this new owner was.

This conversation originally aired in the March 31, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

When a new owner took control of a mobile home park in Mercer County, West Virginia, its residents noticed immediate changes.

Rents went up, and it seemed like the new owner was doing less to take care of problems like broken windows, or even a sewage leak. So one resident started looking into exactly who this new owner was.

What she found led to a story in Voices of Monterey Bay, an online publication from California. It’s titled, “The Davids in Appalachia fighting the Monterey Bay Area’s news Goliath.”

Julie Reynolds reported the story. She recently spoke with Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams from a van in the Mojave desert, north of Quartzsite, Arizona.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Adams: I think you are the first person I’ve interviewed who has been in a minivan sitting in the desert.

Reynolds: Most likely, but you know, the sound quality is pretty good.

Adams: The story you have is headlined, “The Davids in Appalachia fighting the Monterey Bay area’s news Goliath.” This story sprawls across the U.S., but let’s start where the story does, in Mercer County, West Virginia. Can you tell us about Elk View Estates, which is the property at the beginning [of your story]?

Reynolds: Sure. Elk View Estates, according to one of the tenants there, Valeria Steele, was a very nice mobile home park manufactured home community until about 2021, when a very mysterious entity bought the park. Tenants didn’t know who these owners were. They were told to send their rent checks to a place in Englewood, New Jersey to a man named Tom del Bosco and various other entities.

At different times, the rent checks went to a lot of different places. Valeria is kind of a citizen journalist, and she started investigating and digging into public records and connected the dots to see that the entity that bought her mobile home park was an affiliate of the same investment firm that had taken over a huge swath of American newspapers. She found my reporting about this company Alden Global Capital, and its related business Smith Management, and connected the dots and saw that the company that bought her mobile home park, Homes of America, was actually a business affiliate of Alden Global Capital, the same company that was known for destroying local newspapers.

Adams: Now the residents of Elk View Estates are suing Homes of America. What’s the latest on what’s happening there?

Reynolds: So a pro bono law firm called Mountain State Justice decided to support the tenants in all six Mercer County mobile home parks that were owned by Homes of America. They have filed several lawsuits, including one that’s a possible class action. They’re waiting to see if they get certified. And the reason I call them “the Davids fighting Goliath” is because they’ve actually had some successes. They were able to stop rent increases. They were able to halt some evictions. When Homes of America took over, rents just shot up. I mean, Valeria’s went up $300 a month, from $550 to $850 a month. Some went up 60 percent. And we’re talking about, many people in these parks are on very limited income — Social Security, veterans benefits — and can’t even fathom affording that kind of rent increase.

At the same time, they’re stuck there if they’re renting the land, but they own their mobile home. The costs of moving the home are prohibitive. You know, it can be in the tens of thousands of dollars to move one of these mobile homes. So many of them just left. The parks now have a huge vacancy rate. Valeria has told me that there’s been sewage leaks, that there’s overgrown grass, broken windows. And all of this took place since Homes of America took over the park.

The lawsuits, like I said, have had some successes. To me that was very inspiring, because journalists have been trying to figure out how to save their local newspapers, and so far have been kind of befuddled. They’ve been fighting back, and they’ve had a few small victories against Alden Global Capital. But this was stunning and inspiring to see these tenants organizing themselves. They went out with cell phones, shot photos of the sewage leaks and things like that, and put together a case.

Adams: What is the latest with their case at the moment?

Reynolds: They’re kind of on hold for a little bit. The judge handling the cases, the main one retired in December, and the new judge has not been appointed. So they had been in the middle of a process of submitting some motions, because Homes of America was not complying with the court orders. They were not supplying what’s called “discovery,” which is all the documents showing what’s going on. There is a motion still pending to order them to provide this discovery.

They’ve been ordered once and they ignored that order, and now they’re waiting for a new order to have some consequences because they’re absolutely ignoring the court’s order on this. So, they’re in a holding pattern right now. And we shall see what happens next. But they are still fighting.

Adams: You know, here in Appalachia, we’re seeing both of these trends play out in real time, with different companies buying up mobile home parks, and in a lot of cases, raising rent, and making it harder for residents to live there. At the same time, we’re seeing increasing numbers of newspapers acquired by corporate owners who appear to be stripping down the paper for parts. How does Alden bring these stories together? And how did you make these connections?

Reynolds: It was pretty easy because I’m a public documents nerd. Once I started looking at the deeds for these mobile home parks, I recognized the names. I recognized the address in Englewood, New Jersey, I knew that was Smith Management. That’s the firm of Randall Smith, the co-founder of Alden Global Capital. I saw names of Alden executives, all kinds of documents, acquisition papers, permits. Valeria has shown me a check that was cashed by an Alden affiliate was literally a firm set up by Alden completely unrelated to Homes of America. They play very loose and sloppy with all these business entities. There’s a lot of overlap. A lot of the same players are involved in them. So I recognized the names from many of the newspaper documents.

What was most disturbing was an entity — it was called, I believe, Tribune Finance MHP, LLC, something along those lines. That raised my hackles because Alden had recently acquired Tribune Publishing. And I have been trying to follow that trail to see if Alden actually extracted money from the Tribune newspapers to buy these mobile home parks. The name of that entity certainly makes it look like that. And it’s not out of Alden’s wheelhouse because they actually did the same thing with the newspaper chain I worked for, Media News Group. They extracted hundreds of millions of dollars and used that money to buy unrelated businesses that they profited from. Meanwhile, the papers were languishing. We literally had leaky roofs. We had no hot water in the building.

Alden just stopped paying bills, stopped doing maintenance — exactly the same activities they’re doing in these mobile home parks. To them, a business is just a way to extract cash. There’s no interest in journalism, there’s no interest in providing housing — these things that are essential to our society. Companies like Alden do not take that into consideration. It’s just a spreadsheet in their offices. They find ways to extract the maximum profit and provide the least amount of service because that’s what costs money.

Adams: This twin dynamic of corporations, pushing people out of housing or making it harder to live where they live and stripping down newspapers. They’re both pretty bleak. Where do you find hope in all this?

Reynolds: I find hope in Mercer County, West Virginia. I was very inspired by what these tenants are doing. They are not giving up, they are still fighting. These are their homes. This is the one thing that you can claim is yours and hold onto, and it gives you some sense of security. They are not letting go. They are tenacious. The cases are still winding their ways through the courts. Like I said, they have had some successes, and just the fact that they were able to halt the rent increases is a dramatic victory.

I think the hundreds of mobile home parks around the country that are going through the same situation, probably thousands, can look to Mercer County, and take some inspiration and study those cases and see where they’ve been able to have these successes. I mean, I’m just very inspired. I recommend journalists look at them, and study, how are they able to get this kind of success? Because if it’s not illegal, what Alden is doing, it is certainly unethical, it’s immoral.

In many cases, they have just completely ignored permitting processes, things like that. And so that’s where these tenants are able to catch them in the act and find, “Hey, you are not meeting the requirements to even get a permit to operate this business.” And the court says, “Hey, that’s true. Let’s do something about this. You can’t keep charging extra rent until you fix these things.” And in fact, I’m told by the attorneys handling the case that everything they have fixed has been because of a court order.

Adams: It’s pretty cool that a reporter from all the way across the country is still tracking these legal proceedings in West Virginia. Julie Reynolds, thank you for your work. And thanks for coming on and speaking with us on Inside Appalachia.

Reynolds: You’re very welcome. And it’s my pleasure. And both my parents are from Appalachia. So I have roots in eastern Kentucky.

Issues In A Mercer County Mobile Home Park And Our Song Of The Week, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, after a new owner took over a Mercer County mobile home park, rents quickly went up while repairs slowed. One resident did some digging and found a reporter in California who had some unexpected answers about who this new owner was. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with reporter Julie Reynolds.

On this West Virginia Morning, after a new owner took over a Mercer County mobile home park, rents quickly went up while repairs slowed. One resident did some digging and found a reporter in California who had some unexpected answers about who this new owner was. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with reporter Julie Reynolds.

Also, in this show, our Mountain Stage Song of the Week comes to us from GRAMMY-winning Australian rock star Colin Hay. We listen to an acoustic rendition of his international hit, “Down Under.”

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Our Appalachia Health News project is made possible with support from Marshall Health.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Eric Douglas is our news director. Emily Rice produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Six Years Living Next To The Mountain Valley Pipeline

Coles and Theresa “Red” Terry have been fighting over the Mountain Valley Pipeline nearly since it was first proposed in 2014. The project connects natural gas terminals in Virginia and West Virginia with a 303-mile pipeline that stretches across some of Appalachia’s most rugged terrain. Almost immediately after construction began, protestors tried to block it by setting up and living in platforms in trees along the route.

This story originally aired in the March 24, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Coles and Theresa “Red” Terry have been fighting over the Mountain Valley Pipeline nearly since it was first proposed in 2014.

The project connects natural gas terminals in Virginia and West Virginia with a 303-mile pipeline that stretches across some of Appalachia’s most rugged terrain. Almost immediately after construction began, protesters tried to block it by setting up and living in platforms in trees along the route.

Theresa Terry, better known as “Red,” was one of those tree sitters, and she stood out. She was in her 60s — and she wasn’t just an activist. She was tree-sitting on her own land. Back in 2018, Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams interviewed her from on the ground, outside a police barrier that had been set up to prevent her from receiving supplies from her supporters.

Red Terry looks down from her tree sit against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2018.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Not long after the interview, Red was forced out of the trees by a judge who threatened her with a $1,000 per day fine. But Red and her husband Coles have continued to fight the pipeline in court.

Since Congress approved a law that included a provision to force completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, they’ve been seeing construction crews again. Adams wanted to learn more about what’s happened in the six years since Red came down from her tree sit. So he ventured out to Bent Mountain, Virginia, to talk to Red and Coles on their family land.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Adams: How long have y’all lived on this land here in Roanoke County? Did you grow up here?

Coles: I didn’t grow up up here. I grew up in town. My dad, he was an insurance agent. He had his own business. I grew up in Roanoke, but this property’s been in my family for, you know, several generations. We’ve lived up here since we got married. We were married in the front yard, and pretty much came back from our honeymoon into this house.

Red and Cole Terry embrace after she came down from more than a month in her tree sit in 2018.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Adams: So I remember the kind of pipeline being announced. When did y’all learn that the Mountain Valley Pipeline was supposed to come through this property?

Coles: March 28, 2015. We got a letter from the county telling us that our property was one of their proposed routes. Two-hundred and two landowners were served at one time, because it was just quicker and easier to take us all to court. I think we got one offer from them. It was a ridiculously low offer. [We] just said no, and the next thing I know, I’m being sued for eminent domain. There was no negotiating, there was no coming by and talking, “Hey, this is what we can do,” sitting down and talking to you about anything. It’s just, “Hey, no, we’re taking it. This National Gas Act allows us to do that. It put it in the national interest.” Unfortunately, the national interest doesn’t include also protecting people’s personal property, the water or people’s well-beings. It’s just, “It’s in the natural interest to get this pipeline in the ground and pumping gas.

Adams: That was 2018. Here we are now in 2024. I drove in and there are still visible pipeline crews.

Coles: Oh yeah. Everywhere.

Adams: What’s it like to live next to that for six years? How do you come to terms with that?

Coles: For a while, you still had the hopes that, because they were still working on getting all their permits and we were still commenting, and we were still meeting with people in these organizations who were supposedly there to prevent anything going wrong, [they’d] step up and say, “Hey!” But they just kept getting, “Well, this, this looks good to us. This looks fine. There’s nothing to see here. Go ahead. You can do what you need to do.” It just gets more and more disheartening every day. We’re still fighting. They’re still ongoing. We’re taking pictures. We’re trying to show where the sediment’s coming in, and, they’re basically not even getting a slap on the wrist anymore.

I don’t even want to be outside. I don’t want to hear them. Just the fact that I know they’re there is hard enough on me. It’s tough sometimes. Right now, I can hear them when I go outside. I can’t see them because they have finished burying the pipe behind my house for the most part. They still have to test it and then restore it and everything. But that could still take years.

Red Terry crosses a creek near her home just after coming down from a tree sit in 2018.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Adams: Red, you showed me your photo roll, and a lot of photos with the sedimentation and the slime. I remember you scrolled down a good way, and I was overwhelmed in a way, because you had other photos of family and things like that. But so much of your photo roll was just documenting this damage. Like every day when you drive out, you’re just surrounded by it. And you’re dealing with a bureaucracy that seems unresponsive. So I’m wondering, what keeps you going? What gives you hope? What helps you get up and keep fighting this battle day after day, after day?

Coles: For me? I guess it’s the hope that maybe somebody somewhere will will say, “Yeah, we need to stop this or slow this down.” A lot of it, too, is tried to stop it from happening to somebody else. They’re now proposing another pipeline that’s going to be just as big as this one and just as bad as this one. I admire President Biden for halting any new LNG [liquefied natural gas] buildout. We’re already one of the biggest exporters of LNG in the world. The UK and European nations are trying to get away from LNG, and so the market for that is going to collapse. But we’re going to force the country to build more infrastructure to support it. We don’t know where it’s even gonna go.

Red: From day one, it has been nothing but lies. When your daughter — who is just as mean and ornery and, in my eyes, perfect — looks at you and says, “I won’t be alive in two years,” because this bomb’s gonna go off. And we are in the blast zone. I’m 600 yards from that bomb. Everybody up here on this mountain right now, including myself, have pipes floating in water. That one out there floated in over four feet of water for a month. They came in and took two pumps to pump it dry, heat it up, welded it, threw it in there and covered it with mud. You’re not supposed to cover it with mud. But hey, okay, they’re in a hurry. They don’t have to really do anything that they’re supposed to do.

What gets me up in the morning? I don’t want to get up in the morning. I don’t want to do anything. I have so much **** to do, and I’m paralyzed.

Adams: So now MVP is telling investors and the press that they expect to be completed this spring. What do you all foresee in the future? What do you expect will happen?

Coles: Do I think they’ll be done by the end of March? I see pictures of pipe still above ground. I don’t know how long it’s going to take them to bore under [Interstate] 81. I know there’s some really hard rock there. I know that they might have finished one of the bores at my sister’s, but it took them a lot longer than they thought it was going to. They’re still blasting over there.

So, either they’ve given up boring or they’re just digging through, I’m not sure. I find it hard to believe this pipeline will be in service by the end of the first quarter of this year. “In-service” means a lot of different things to me. Even if the whole pipe’s in the ground, it still has to be tested. The right-of-way has to be restored. FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] still has to approve it. I was told that it could take ‘til 2026 or 2027 to get everything restored.

Adams: That thing you said about Minor [their daughter] saying she doesn’t expect to be alive in three years?

Coles: Yes. Because she thinks once they start putting gas in this thing, it’s going to rupture and explode.

Red: This is one of the steepest, unbelievable, someone sitting in an office drawing a line. And I understand what they did because they have tried to go to the largest landowners so that they don’t have that many fights, so they don’t have that much opposition.

Coles and Theresa “Red” Terry at their home in Bent Mountain, Virginia.

*Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Adams: When I was a cub reporter at the Roanoke Times and somebody gets shot and killed, you’d have to go to talk to their family — like that level of grief. That’s what this feels like.

Red: When Coles and I got married, and when we moved up here, this wall was falling in. This was screens that had been ripped and torn. These boards under here were this wide and they were spaced to have plenty of room between them. And my dearest husband hooked a come-along to a tree out here and pulled the house back out, put in the drop ceiling, put in the staircase here, put in the windows. We laid some floor, put some carpet down, opened the door. And every morning, every ******* morning. I would get up — my kids got me blinds to close for the MVP, I’ve never had blinds up — but every morning I would go out here and look, and just stand there and look, and think to myself, “I must be the luckiest person alive to have this view.”

Now, every time I look, I see the flags. I see the damage. I see the destruction. And I mean, my view, my hike through there, my apple orchard on the top where I went mushroom hunting, and all the critters in the world up here went up to that top orchard. Because the trees were so big. I had one up there that just produced so much. And all of that is now part of their LOD. And it just … it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking what they’ve done. I mean, I still love this mountain, but it’s heartbreaking what they’ve done to so many parts that were so beautiful. And then the other day, when my son was here, and I stopped at the mailboxes, and I parked on our road, our driveway, and I walked over to the mailboxes and all the MVP guys were leaving. So I “waved” to ‘em. And one guy went by me in a big blue truck, and he slammed on his brakes.

Now, you got a whole crew leaving, and he slammed on his brakes, and I’m standing at my mailbox waiting on them to pass. And he comes over and goes, “You don’t know me. You don’t know me. Don’t be shooting the finger at me.” And I looked at him. I said, “Are you a pipeliner?” He said, “Yes, I am.” I said, “Well, I don’t have to know you to know what you’re doing to my land, and yeah, I’d like you to go the **** home.” And he said, “I’m not going anywhere,” and he gets … he’s a little taller than I am. And he’s like, “If you don’t like it, why don’t you move?” And I’m like, “My husband’s family has been here for seven generations.” He goes, “I’ve been a pipeliner. We’ve got pipeliners for six generations.” But he gets up over me.

I said, “Bring in on, ***********. You don’t have anything that scares me. I’m old. I’m tired. And I used to be a redhead before you ************* showed up. So do your worst. I’m not afraid.” And the guy about 10 trucks back jumped out and came up and grabbed him. “Get in your truck and leave.” He goes, “I’m not finished.” He says, “Yes you are. Get in your truck and leave.” And I’ve never had such evil thoughts in my life. I have never wanted to hurt anyone. And things are changing. Things are changing. I would like to hurt somebody really bad.

——

After this interview, Inside Appalachia reached out to pipeline officials about the Terrys’ claims.

Pipeline spokeswoman Natalie Cox sent a statement:

“MVP project opponents continue to promote factual inaccuracies in support of their agenda, which includes a primary objective to stop MVP and other linear infrastructure. The MVP project has been subject to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, and the fact is the VADEQ, WVDEP, and other agencies continue to conduct daily project inspections, and the inspection process is working as designed. If and when any compliance issues are identified, Mountain Valley takes immediate responsibility to remediate the identified issue or concern. As has always been the case, completing construction and fully restoring the project’s right-of-way remains the best method of permanent environmental protection.

“Mountain Valley will continue to coordinate with all appropriate state and federal agencies, including FERC, USACE, VADEQ, VDCR, and WVDEP, to ensure the safe, responsible completion of the project, which includes building and operating the project in accordance with all applicable regulations, incorporating best management practices, and meeting or exceeding applicable industry standards for linear infrastructure.”

Construction continues on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Company officials project it will be completed by June 2024.