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Paradise Cost: Coal, Natural Gas, And The True Price Of Power

Thanks to singer-songwriter John Prine, Paradise Fossil Plant might be the only coal-fired power plant that has a household name. “Paradise,” Prine’s 1971 ballad, drew on boyhood memories from the small town of Paradise, in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, to relay the environmental and social costs of our dependence on coal.

“Mr. Peabody’s coal train,” he sang, had hauled away the Paradise from his childhood.

On a recent hot July day down by the Green River, where Paradise lay, officials from the electricity suppliers at the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, gathered to mark a milestone in the region’s energy production: the dedication of a gleaming, new billion-dollar generator to replace two of the 50-year-old coal burners nearby. This new facility, however, would burn natural gas.

TVA’s new gas fired facility, with the older coal units in background.

“Natural gas is more flexible, it’s cheaper to operate, and also more efficient,” David Sorrick, TVA’s senior vice president of power operations, said. “The unit behind me becomes the most efficient one in the TVA fleet.”

Just a week earlier, the Trump administration’s energy secretary, Rick Perry, toured a coal-fired power plant in West Virginia to tout the president’s commitment to coal.

“The people who make their living in the coal mines running plants like this, they need to understand something,” Perry said. “They have a friend, a proponent, in the White House in Donald Trump.”

Explore the power switch in the Ohio Valley region. >>

The Paradise and Longview power plants stand as examples of coal’s struggle to hold its ground against natural gas, even in the Ohio Valley, where coal has long been king. In addition to the new Paradise facility, three new natural gas power plants are pending in West Virginia, and a dozen are either in construction or planning stages in Ohio.

Despite the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back regulations on the mining and burning of coal, natural gas is rapidly becoming the power industry’s fuel of choice. It’s a switch that also brings big changes for the region’s economy, environment, and public health.

The Long View on Coal

Energy Secretary Perry recently toured North America’s youngest, most efficient coal-fired electricity plant, Longview Power near Fort Martin, West Virginia.

“This is a very enlightening stop,” Perry said. “This technology, this ability to deliver a secure, economical, environmentally good source of energy is really important.”

A 20-day supply of coal is always stockpiled at the plant, fed directly from the mouth of a nearby coal mine via a conveyor belt that stretches more than 4 miles. About 600 employees work together to keep rock burning hot to boil water in the deafening plant.

“This is the turbine building,” Longview manager Chad Hufnagle shouted during a tour. “The turbine is basically where we take the steam from the boiler, we rotate the turbine to take the mechanical energy into electrical.”

Congressman David McKinley, Senator Shelly Moore Capito, Secretary Rick Perry, Senator Joe Manchin met to tour Loungview Power.

Longview generates 700 megawatts of electricity for the region and it does so with far less pollution than most older coal burners in the nation’s fleet of power plants. Longview officials say the plant produces 90 percent less particulate pollution than other coal plants. It also produces less carbon dioxide compared to other coal plants, because of its high efficiency and partial use of natural gas as a complementary fuel.

Longview does not capture and store the carbon dioxide emissions, however, something generally thought of as part of “clean coal” technology. That technology suffered a major setback when the operators of the $7 billion Kemper facility in Mississippi pulled the plug on a planned clean coal facility and decided instead to switch to natural gas.

Secretary Perry and many federal lawmakers see big benefits in keeping coal-fired power going, and if coal is going to have a future, it will probably be with plants like Longview.

“This plant — and I won’t say plants like it, because there’s not a lot like it — is incredibly important to the future of this country,” Perry said.

But Longview’s short history shows the many hurdles coal power faces. Plans were drawn for Longview in 2001 and the plant met resistance from local residents who sued to stop it. After winning the necessary permits Longview’s owners secured financing in 2007 and started operation in 2011.

Just two years later, however, the operating company filed for bankruptcy protection as electricity demand fell and competition from cheaper natural gas rose. The company emerged from bankruptcy just two years ago. Officials now say the facility’s high efficiency helps make it competitive in a tough market.

That sort of bumpy start helps explain why few coal powered facilities are slated for construction.

Perry is waiting for an analysis he has ordered of the country’s electrical grid. He expects that report will demonstrate need for the kind of constant, uninterrupted power coal can provide.

“Where Paradise Lay”

Coal is showing its age. The average age of coal plants in the U.S. today is about 40 years and for the past couple of decades power companies have faced tough decisions about the investments needed to keep those coal-burners going in a way that meets both environmental requirements and economic competition.

Many are opting to phase out coal and instead invest in cheaper, cleaner natural gas.

Some 8,000 megawatts of coal power generating capacity will likely be retired this year. That’s roughly the equivalent of 11 Longview plants. Last year, 13,000 megawatts of coal were retired, many of those before planned retirement dates.

Economists like Walter Culver with the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University say the boom in the shale gas supply and development of high efficiency technology to burn that gas are combining to force more coal out of the market.

“So now the natural efficiency of generating electricity with gas for the same amount of gas energy as coal energy is about half of the costs, basically,” he said.

TVA’s new 100 MW gas-fired facility at Paradise, KY.

That was the strong selling point for TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson, who recently addressed a crowd gathered in Paradise, Kentucky.

“It’s a big part of our priority here to diversify our fleet to make sure we are making electricity at the lowest feasible rate,” he said.

David Sorrick, TVA’s senior vice president of power operations, stood near the new 1100 megawatt facility.

“Directly behind me is the new Paradise combined-cycle facility,” he said. “And it’s co-located with the unit down the hill, which is our Paradise coal facility.”

Gas power produces far less soot, no mercury, and none of the combustion ash that coal power produces. It also produces 40 to 50 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions compared to the coal unit.

Operations technician Kyle Jones conducted a tour at the dedication ceremony, and proudly pointed out the efficiency features.

“The combined cycle portion where we’re using all the heat possible is what makes it so efficient,” he explained. “Our exhaust leaving the stack is as cool as we can make it to use all the energy we could, the most heat transfer possible.”

That even reduces the amount of water needed from the nearby Green River. Steam is returned to liquid form in cooling towers. Huge fans pass air over droplets to cool water until it can be reused.

Jones started at the Paradise coal facility a decade ago and worked his way from conveyer operator to unit operator and now a job at the new gas facility.

“I love it,” he said of the new plant. “It’s a whole lot more clean and makes a world of difference in terms of the work I do.”

Others in the community, however, see trouble in Paradise. At the nearby Paradise Cafe, a stone monument to Kentucky’s coal miners greets visitors at the door. Inside, patrons talked over burgers and BLTs about looming concerns over job losses, either at the TVA facility or the nearby coal mine that supplies it.

The TVA is eager to calm those fears. Sorrick pointed out that even though two coal units were retired here, a third one remains in operation and likely will for decades. However, the new gas facility employs fewer people than the coal plant did. Some employees found work elsewhere in the TVA system.

Health Effects

When John Prine put Paradise on the popular culture map, he was writing about the visible effects of strip mining.

But what Prine couldn’t see then were some of the profound public health effects of burning coal, effects that would take years to measure.

The TVA has been burning coal in Paradise for fifty years. But it started burning a lot more of it in the 1980s, after the public’s opinion of nuclear power changed dramatically.

“It was completely related to the partial nuclear meltdown of Three Mile Island in 1979,” Carnegie Mellon University researcher Edson Severnini noticed.

When the TVA took some of its nuclear power generators off line, the power gap was met with coal, specifically, a big increase in the output from the Paradise Fossil Plant. That swap in power generation in the mid 80s provided Severnini an opportunity to study public health impacts in places where coal power generation increased.

He found a striking relationship between the uptick in coal burning at Paradise and a decrease in the size of babies born downwind.

“Where Paradise coal-fired power plant was located there was a huge increase in coal-fired power generation, a high increase in air pollution,” he said. “And in that particular location there was a decrease in birth weight by 5.4 percent.”

Severnini’s study was published in the journal Nature in April. He looked at recorded birth weight in the first 18 months after the region’s switch to coal. It was accessible data and birth weight is a good indicator of human health outcomes later in life. Severnini explained that low birth weight can be linked to shorter life spans, higher susceptibility to disease, and even a person’s ability to thrive socially.

“What I wanted people to think about is: What are the consequences of energy choices?” he said.

The Paradise coal facility is now far cleaner than it was in the 80s thanks to stronger requirements under the Clean Air Act and pollution control technology TVA installed. But no matter how you burn it, coal is an organic material dug from the ground and will produce emissions. Recent environmental studies indicate that despite progress in pollution control, soot from coal power plants still accounted for an estimated 7,000 premature deaths each year in the U.S. as of 2014. That’s a lot fewer deaths than the country saw just a decade earlier.

“The cleaner you get that carbon-containing compound you’re burning, the better it is,” said University of Pittsburgh physician and public health expert Dr. Bernard Goldstein. “There are cleaner forms of coal, but none of them are as clean as, say, natural gas.”

Goldstein said despite a lack of data to understand the full health effects of the natural gas industry, it is a significantly cleaner fossil fuel to burn. And gas drillers probably face fewer health risks than coal miners.

“Anytime we’ve had areas that have switched from coal to natural gas there are far less particulates in the air and so the pollution levels have decreased because of that switch,” he said.

Uncertainty Over Gas

But while natural gas offers improvements compared to coal, its environmental effects are proving difficult to fully measure.

Goldstein said he thinks the gas industry, which is highly fragmented, has missed opportunities to clearly address concerns about its own environmental effects. Those include air and water pollution near drilling sites, disposal concerns related to drilling waste, and the greenhouse gas emissions that result from methane leakage.

As a result, any health effects remain to be clearly understood.

“For natural gas, the major uncertainties are weighing on the people who live next door,” he said.

Next door to gas drilling, that is. Put another way, the health and environmental risks for the industry’s host communities may take years to observe and measure. And the people of the Ohio Valley may well bear the brunt of those effects to come, just as they have with the effects of coal in the past.

Steely Ban: Ohio Valley Steel Makers Await Trump Import Decision

Steel makers and manufacturers around the Ohio Valley are waiting for a report from the Trump administration that could trigger higher tariffs on imported steel and bring mixed results for a region that still has strong ties to the industry.

In the presidential campaign Trump told voters he would place sanctions on steel imports from China and other countries, and the report being prepared by the Commerce Department could provide a rationale for new tariffs.

In a statement, Cincinnati-based AK Steel said the company supports the administration’s investigation into “threats to our country’s national security due to unfair and illegal trade practices by foreign producers.” AK Steel has facilities in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.

Although the region’s steel industry has declined dramatically since its peak more than a half century ago, the American Iron and Steel Institute says the industry still supports more than 20,500 jobs at 38 iron and steel facilities in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.

In April President Trump asked the Commerce Dept. to report on whether the country’s reliance on foreign steel imports affects national security. The Trade Expansion Act gives the president power to use tariffs if excessive foreign imports are found to threaten national security, but that is rarely invoked.

While relatively little imported steel is used directly in defense-related manufacturing, AK Steel maintains that critical infrastructure should also be considered, “especially in areas like electrical steels, which are used to power our nation’s electrical grid.”

The company statement said electrical steel imports have doubled over the past year.

Western Kentucky University Economics Professor Brian Strow predicted that Trump will follow through on his campaign pledge, but warned that tariffs will likely have negative effects for the region.

“I believe that they’re coming but I’m not happy about it,” Strow said.

He said higher prices on imported steel would have an adverse effect on some regional businesses sensitive to costs for raw materials, such as auto manufacturing.

“Kentucky is big in the auto industry,” he said, “and it turns out that cars need steel and most of the steel we put into U.S. cars comes from abroad.”

Strow said there are far more people in the region employed in the automobile industry than in steel.

“So it’s a case of politicians trying to reward one specific special interest group at the cost of others,” he said.

And then, Strow said, there is the likelihood of retaliation by trading partners that could affect any number of exports important to the regional economy. A European Union official even called out Kentucky bourbon as a potential target for retaliatory tariffs.

Strow recalled that when President George W. Bush imposed tariffs on steel imports in 2002 Europeans responded with their own import tariffs on Harley Davidson motorcycles, a good produced in a swing state Bush needed for reelection.

“They went for the political jugular,” Strow said. “And I suspect that’s what they’re doing with the bourbon industry.”

The Commerce Dept. and White House officials have indicated the steel imports report is coming soon. In his business career, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross purchased several bankrupt steel companies, including Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Weirton Steel in the Ohio Valley. He sold the companies in 2005.

Perry’s Coal Economics Leaves Economists Puzzled

Energy Secretary Rick Perry toured a modern and relatively clean coal-fired power plant in West Virginia in order to tout the benefits of coal in a competitive energy market. But the secretary’s comments generated some controversy.

The coal industry has been feeling the heat from natural gas as electric utilities switch to that cleaner, cheaper fuel. When asked how coal can compete, Perry said it was a simple matter of economics.

“Here’s a little economics lesson, that supply and demand,” Perry said. “You put the supply out there and the demand will follow that.”

That left some economists puzzled: Simply supplying a product does not West Virginia University economics professor Brian Lego guessed that Perry was likely talking about the 19th century theory known as Say’s Law but not quite getting it right.

“The description that the secretary provided was very…” Lego struggled for a polite way to put it, “I don’t want to use the word inadequate, but incomplete at least.”

Perry’s comment caught the attention of energy market watchers and the gaffe was soon trending on Twitter.

Longview Power faced years of community opposition and bankruptcy.

Perry’s visit to Longview Power and a nearby coal mine was intended to highlight energy infrastructure needs and what Perry calls “clean coal” technology.

According to Longview, their plant is the cleanest coal-burning power plant in North America, with some of the lowest emissions. However, it does not capture greenhouse gas emissions of CO2, something generally thought of as part of “clean coal” technology.

The company that owns the plant has had its own economic troubles, emerging from bankruptcy just two years ago. Officials say the facility’s high efficiency helps make it competitive in a tough market.

Working With Addiction: A Popsicle Plant Helps To Lick The Opioid Crisis

If you’ve ever enjoyed a Budget Saver twin popsicle on a hot summer day, you can thank the employees of the Ziegenfelder frozen treat factory in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Floor operator Sonny Baxter keeps the line of popsicles going in the cherry-scented worksite.

“You have to have a comprehension of how the line works, how to make them run as smooth as possible” he said. “You have to supervise the line workers that are bagging the popsicles. You’re a friend. You’re a leader.”

But Baxter’s job goes beyond keeping the popsicle line moving. He also uses the training in addiction counseling he received outside of work to help Ziegenfelder employees who are in recovery from addiction and re-entering the workforce.

“You have to really have a healthy level of empathy for people from different circumstances and different environments,” Baxter said.

Addiction specialists say employment helps in the recovery process. And here in one of the areas hardest hit by the addiction crisis, some employers are stepping up their efforts to bring these people back to work in hopes of chipping away at the epidemic.

Facing a Crisis

Ziegenfelder embraces its role in this effort.

“Businesses really need to step to the plate and participate in changing our environment,” President and CEO Lisa Allen said. “We don’t necessarily go out and search for a certain person re-entering. We search for great people.”

Ziegenfelder CEO Lisa Allen wants businesses to “change the environment” of the addiction crisis.

The company estimates that around a third of their employees come from a local temp agency and some of those employees were on probation and living at the local halfway house.

Ziegenfelder managers also knew some of their long-term employees had a “background.” But they did not take an interest in those workers’ stories until several years ago.

Production Manager Matt Porter saw the toll the opioid epidemic was having on the Ohio Valley. He said he felt the company could be a force for change by giving people affected by the crisis another chance.

“Whether we chose to face it head on and realize that there’s an epidemic going on in the Ohio Valley or we ran from it, ultimately it’s going to find us,” he said.

That thinking led to the decision to become a “Drug-Free Workplace.” The company takes measures to avoid drug-related hazard while offering assistance instead of punishment to employees who approach them about their struggles with addiction.

Loyal Employees

An consultant agency based just outside of Columbus, Ohio, is working to help companies implement drug free workplace policies.

Working Partners tailors these policies to meet the needs of both major corporations and small businesses.

Working Partners advises employers to protect themselves from liability. But companies should also offer a helping hand rather than a slap on the wrist to employees who approach managers about addiction.

CEO Dee Mason believes it’s ethically the right thing to do. But there are also economic benefits for the employer.

“If that person stays the course and you’ve actually thrown them a life ring, those people will come back and be some of the most loyal employees you’ve got,” she said.

She said a good policy consists of five elements:

A legal document outlining detailed procedures
A drug safety education program for employees
Training for supervisors to detect the signs of addiction in employees
A system for drug testing
An Employee Assistance Program for when treatment is needed

Mason said employers see the benefits of this approach when it is explained “in a language that they understand, which is ‘Let’s do the math.’”
A 2009 study in the journal Psychiatric Services found that when an employer pressures an employee to seek addiction treatment, it “gets people to treatment earlier and provides incentives for treatment adherence.”

When the employee returns from treatment, the employer saves “up to $2,607 per worker annually,” according to survey results posted in March by the National Safety Council. The savings are estimated based on missed work days and healthcare costs incurred by employees in active addiction.

Other benefits for employers include a discount on workers compensation insurance premiums in certain states (in Ohio and Kentucky) and the opportunity to take government contracts.

West Virginia lacks a state-managed drug-free workplace program. However, recent legislation taking effect in July expands circumstances in which workers can be tested for drugs, and testing is required for workers in all public works projects.

The opioid epidemic has increased demand for Working Partners’ services in both urban and rural areas. Mason said rural communities present unique challenges in getting employees treatment.

“We’re raising the awareness of the employers. But now we’ve got to figure out how to find services that they can rely on. There aren’t enough services,” Mason said.

Data Gap

Working Partners is also trying to get data on the impact opioids are having on employment in Ohio.

The company has partnered with the state in a 17-county initiative called the Drug-Free Workforce Community Initiative.

Working Partners is in the process of collecting survey data from over 5,000 employers gauging their perception of the issue.

Mason said the study was motivated by the frequent complaint from employers who claim they can’t find workers who could pass a drug test.

“We kept looking at the national statistics of positivity rates for drug testing and going ‘Really? You can’t find workers? Okay,’” Mason said. “Let’s blow this out and see what’s really going on.”

While there are some national data on which industries are most affected by substance use disorders, there is no scientific data on a local scale.

It can be difficult to track when some employers don’t keep an official record of drug test results.

“If they say, ‘Well, we have a positivity rate of 20 percent for our applicants coming in the door.’ We want to know if that’s an opinion or data driven,” Mason said.

Mason plans to combine the results with secondary data from community leaders and national statistics for a complete look at the issue.

‘They Work Hard’

Other organizations across the Ohio Valley are working to fill in the service gaps and prepare those in treatment programs for workforce re-entry.

Employment is a major part of the journey to continued recovery at LifeSkills in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which develops employees who who may have never been in the workforce before.

“Some of these people haven’t worked in 10 or 20 years,” Seth Pedigo, a Re-entry Specialist with LifeSkills said. “They’re wanting to go back into the field.”

The nonprofit mental health and addiction institution incorporates job training as part of its recovery program and advocates for clients to potential employers.

The difficult part for LifeSkills is the stigma employees in recovery carry.

“They relapse, yes, at times, and they lose their job,” Pedigo said. “They’re fired on on the spot. No appeal process. Nothing, depending on the company.”

The advocates work with employers to create workplaces that understand relapse is not the same as failure.

“Let’s talk about it, because if you fire them you’re going to unravel all the work they’ve put in,” Pedigo said. “And they work hard.”

In his view, another chance can make all the difference.

Not ‘Part of the problem’

Sonny Baxter can attest to that.

Ziegenfelder gave him another chance after he served time in federal prison for crimes he says were related to the addiction crisis.

“I was technically part of the problem,” he said.

But he changed while serving his sentence. And he was determined to become part of the solution.

He trained to become an addiction counselor in hopes of helping others.

“I was told a long time the things you learn are not yours to keep,” he said. “I place that responsibility on myself.”

Baxter began work at the frozen treats factory the day after completing his sentence in 2015.

He also took an interest in computer programing. He taught himself to code from books while incarcerated and then enrolled in a class upon release.

He’s acquired some freelance technical support work but he would like to use his skills for Ziegenfelder. He’d like to create an app drawing on his work experience.

“I’m thinking like a Candy Crush-type thing where you got an assembly line and you have to create an assortment [of popsicles],” Baxter said. “I’m working on it.”

People who had a past involvement in the addiction crisis can be valuable to society. And Baxter hopes he can be an example of that.

“People don’t realize how successful, how stable, and how goal-oriented you can be working in the factory. So I play an example to different types of people,” he said. “People that don’t realize the type of opportunity, resources that are available here that you can take advantage of and use as a stepping stone to be progressive in the community.”

ReSource reporters Glynis Board and Becca Schimmel contributed to this story.

High Hop(e)s: Craft Brewing Has Farmers Betting On Hops

The acres devoted to growing hops doubled in the U.S. in just the past five years and the trade group Hop Growers of America estimates that 95 percent of…

The acres devoted to growing hops doubled in the U.S. in just the past five years and the trade group Hop Growers of America estimates that 95 percent of that market belongs to farmers along the West Coast. But the craft beer craze is changing the direction for hop farms by generating demand for more locally sourced ingredients, and Ohio Valley farmers like Wes Cole want in on the action.

On a small incline behind Cole’s homestead in Hickory, Kentucky, sits a tenth of an acre plot of Mt. Hood hops, a variety that’s tolerant to the crop disease downy mildew.

“This spot is about as windy as it could be. If you don’t believe me, try folding up a tarp out here. It will make you lose your religion,” Cole said, as he explained why a cool, dry location is critical in hop production. The plants will grow vertically, often requiring 25 feet or more of support in thick twine for the bines, or flexible stems, to wrap themselves around as they produce the cone-shaped grains used for bittering beer.

In the 1800s, Cole explained, hops were a prominent part of farming across the region. But the spread of crop disease in humid conditions forced most hop production out west, where growers continue to prosper commercially.

Cole likens crop diseases to biblical plagues. “You are going to fight it all the time of your life,” he said.

He knows his bible, and half-joked that his Southern Baptist church wouldn’t look favorably on his new venture with its ties to alcohol production. But finding a cash crop that he can grow with the autonomy that allows him choose organic methods is worth the penance.

“Tobacco is what got me into this because of the bad flavor that put in my mouth. Because I have grown a crop for another man all my life and made another man a ba-zillionaire and I’m living like a pauper,” Cole said.

Now he hopes hops will change that.

“I got into this because there ain’t no middle man. I’m making the money.” Cole said local breweries have a strong appetite for local hops. “They said, ‘You grow us any hop and we will use it. We want local hops, period.’ ”

So far three breweries have said they’ll buy his hops.

Hops bines, or flexible stems, grow along twine or other structures.

‘Stick With The Cs’

Hop alliances in Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky say the region’s hop market is wide open. But securing a futures contract with a brewery decreases the risks farmers face in both the up-front costs to get started and the potential volatility of the market.

“We tell new growers to stick with the Cs,” said Scott Eidson with the Kentucky Hop Growers Alliance. “There’s three main varieties that start with C: Cascade, Chinook and Centennial. Out of those three, Cascade and Chinook grow extremely well in the state.”

The “super-human variety” Eidson said, is Chinook. “It can grow anywhere across the state.”

Eidson has been hop farming since 2009. He found that information on growing the plant in this region is scarce. When he would meet other farmers while looking to learn more conversations would develop, and those conversations became meetings, which eventually led to the creation of the Kentucky Hop Growers Alliance, which incorporated in 2015.

Costly Crop

“Hops are very labor intensive and cost prohibitive,” Eidson warned. “So there is a lot of money to be made but that money is maybe five, 10 years down the road. It takes about three to five years to even break even.”

Eidson said a lot of farmers he meets are like Wes Cole — people looking to get away from tobacco. Cole is certain the bigger hops growers will make their way into the Ohio Valley and push him out at some point. But Eidson said the large producers are likely wary because basic information about the crop in the region is lacking.

A ReSource data search found very little information on hops in the region. A 2016 record shows 20 acres of hop varieties in Kentucky and 70 in Ohio. No information was available for West Virginia.

“So there’s limitations with the knowledge that we have, the skills that we have and the machinery that’s available,” Eidson said. And that raises concerns about just how well the crop might do here.

“We’re told hops don’t grow,” Eidson said.

The ideal hop growing conditions lie between the 35th and 55th latitude parallels, which covers the entire Ohio Valley, and most of the continental U.S. But there are many local variations in conditions.

“The climate, soil, and daylight hours are a bit more favorable in Ohio, and probably optimal in Michigan,” said Ohio Valley Hops spokesman Dave Volkman.

Volkman said Ohio growers have around 100 acres strung for harvest this year, “with about another 100 just put in,” he said. But most farms range from just one to four acres.

Eidson said the largest farm in Kentucky is currently 5 acres. However, Lexington-based West Sixth Brewery has purchased 120 acres with plans to grow hops and fruit trees. Co-owner Joe Kuosman said the farm is not for production purposes, but to educate the community on the beer making process.

Hops farms in the region are small but the investment costs are not.

As is the case with other industries with little local data to support the likelihood of success, hop farms have trouble persuading banks to offer loans.

“We lack multi-generational knowledge, although we’re learning a lot, fast,” said Volkman. Growers are concerned about the quality of hops and what sort of investment it takes to process the harvest.

“Most states have formed growers associations to collaborate, and a number of universities have research efforts,” Volkman said. “The processing infrastructure isn’t adequate yet in much of the Midwest.”

Hops are key to craft beers, but can be tricky for farmers.

The Kentucky Hop Growers Alliance and West Virginia State University are using grants to purchase equipment to ease some of the costs. West Virginia State University Extension Agent Brad Cochran said after a successful round of pilot hops projects, quality hops aren’t an issue. Neither is finding a place for the fresh batches. Most of those are used for “wet hopping” where brewers apply fresh hops flowers to a brew within days of harvest, a technique local breweries use in places lacking infrastructure to process hops.

“We sort of found out that processing is that next step. And so if we’re able to get these hops processed into a pelleted form that’s really going to open up a lot of additional markets,” Cochran said.

Drink Together, Grow Together

The pattern of co-op equipment shares, university support, and local hop alliances is in keeping with the spirit of craft beer, which reflects a sort of locavore renaissance. It’s something West Sixth Brewing’s Kuosman said he is seeing more of each day.

“And this is part of our story, right? As a local brewery we’re asking people to support the local brewery,” Kuosman said. “If we’re not supporting our local farmer then that story we’re trying to tell just isn’t isn’t real.”

West Sixth Brewing of Lexington at a recent beer festival.

Kuosman left the corporate world to pursue his passion for brewing. He said he is amazed at the projects that have developed from collaborations associated with local brewing operations.

“Something that we’ve seen is that [breweries have] really helped to revitalize buildings and communities.” he said. “It’s not just a business, it’s not just a brewery or tap room–it’s become this community center where we do all these different activities from free yoga to the free running clubs,” Kuosman said. He recalled a Canadian visitor who likened his building to a YMCA, only with beer.

As with the local food movement, people want to know where their beer ingredients come from.

“They want to meet the person that’s growing that food and brewing that beer and really have their purchases going back to supporting their local community,” Kuosman said. “I think that is what it comes down to, in that it’s very old school, in that it is a relationship business.”

But craft beer palates also change frequently, and that can create a volatile market for farmers who are working with plants that can often take up to two years to establish themselves.

“A certain variety is very popular this year and something new comes out next year and that old variety just isn’t as popular anymore,” Kuosman said, so there will always be some risk.

A Special Breed

This is why proprietary varieties like Michigan’s Warrior Hops do so well. The variety is owned by the state hop alliance, so it can control the supply.

But developing a proprietary variety takes a lot of work. Ohio Valley Hops’ Dave Volkmann said a few growers are experimenting with breeding, “but that’s a long, complicated and expensive process.”

He said hundred or thousands of crosses may yield only a few usable varieties, raising questions about whether it is worth the effort.

“While proprietary hops capture the imagination, great beer is brewed every day with open-source hops,” he said.

Farmer/artist Wes Cole’s painting of tobacco plants.

Kentucky Hop Growers Alliance sees proprietary hops varieties as an opportunity for future stability, Eidson said. The group has even joked about what the first variety would be named: “Kentucky Gold,” or “Bluegrass Hop,” or some variation in between.

Whatever happens with the hop industry, farmer Wes Cole figures it will be better than his old tobacco growing days.

“Like I said, I’m done growing something for somebody else. I’m tired of fighting skin cancer and copperheads for a crop that another man is going to make fortune off of.”

Hops farming, he said, offers hope. “It’s like my liberation project.”

Without A Net: Rural Residents Band Together for Internet Service

Nearly half of the people living in rural parts of United States don’t have access to broadband internet, the high-speed connection required for common…

Nearly half of the people living in rural parts of United States don’t have access to broadband internet, the high-speed connection required for common uses many of us take for granted. Government and survey data show that in 65 counties across Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, most residents don’t have access to broadband — that’s a quarter of all the counties in the three states.

With the internet continuing to grow in importance for school, work and for everyday life, many disconnected rural communities see their lack of internet access as an existential threat. Some communities hope that by banding together, communities can find ways to bring fast internet to places it’s never been.

Offline in Linefork

Jamelia Lewis lives in little valley tucked away in the mountains of Letcher County, Kentucky, in a rural area called Linefork. It’s a place with a strong sense of heritage.

Lewis lives in the house where she grew up, a former schoolhouse that her grandfather built. She’s chosen to stay home in order to help take care of her parents. Lewis has a background in accounting, but she’s had a hard time finding a work-from-home job, which would allow her to continue to take care of her elderly parents.

“I was actually offered a job where I could work from home but I couldn’t take the job because there’s no internet,” she said.

Rural residents worry that poor internet service will hold back their youth.

The lack of connectivity has also made homework a challenge for Lewis’ children, especially for her younger son who’s visually impaired. The school has loaned him an iPad that he can use to zoom in on the text in his assignments, but without broadband connection he can’t send and receive assignments from home.

“I feel like he’s getting left behind because he doesn’t have what he needs to get his education,” Lewis said, “and that’s not fair.”

‘Our Heritage Will Die’

Tina Sparkman lives nearby on a farm that’s been in the family for generations. Her family’s only choice is satellite internet, which isn’t very reliable. Sparkman said that on a good day, it takes ten minutes to load a three minute video on Facebook.

“And if the wind’s blowing, the satellite isn’t working,” she said with a laugh.

Sparkman has a son attending Eastern Kentucky University. He can’t trust that the family’s internet will let him do his homework, so he stays on campus, which costs the family more money, and means they don’t get to spend as much time together.

Tina Sparkman worries more about what will happen after her son finishes college. “My children won’t come back here to live if things don’t change,” she said. “Our heritage will die here with my generation.”

KentuckyWired

Kentucky state officials have been pushing to expand broadband access for years. Eastern Kentucky, long known for coal mining, is represented by Congressman Hal Rogers who hopes the internet can help the area rebrand itself.

“In talking about our future, I have half-facetiously referred to our area as ‘Silicon Holler,’” he said.

Rogers has worked with two Kentucky governors on a project called KentuckyWired, which would build a fiber-optic network across the entire state. The plan for the first phase is to start from a connection to the backbone of the internet in Cincinnati, and then build three loops— first to Lexington and Louisville, than two more loops to cover areas due south and east.

The eastern Kentucky section was originally scheduled to go online in 2016 but there have been significant delays. The state is just starting to install small buried segments of fiber-optic cable. There’s still more work to be done before the state will have all the rights and plans it needs to hang cable on utility poles.

And for residents waiting on KentuckyWired to bring them internet connection, there’s one more catch: The network won’t connect directly to anyone’s home. The project is building the so-called “middle mile,” but it’s up to internet providers and local communities to build the “final mile” that connects to homes and businesses.

Letcher County and four of its neighboring countiess have teamed up and hired consultants to make a final mile plan. One of the consultants, Eric Mills, told the group they should expect a cost of $40,000 a mile when installing a fiber-optic network. “It’s expensive but it’s essential,” Mills said. “We’ve got to give ourselves a swift kick in the rear to make sure we compete.”

Letcher County seems to have taken that message to heart. The county government created a broadband board, made up of volunteers from the community. When the board came to Linefork in February, Jamelia Lewis, Tina Sparkman, and dozens of their neighbors came out to hear about the plans for a better internet connection. Harry Collins, who chairs the broadband board, told the crowd that the board was applying for a $1.5 million dollar federal grant to install broadband internet in Linefork.

West Virginia Takes Notice

In West Virginia, a recent law builds on some of the lessons learned in Kentucky. The measure was introduced by Delegate Roger Hanshaw, who represents Clay, Calhoun, and Gilmer Counties. “A three-county district without a stoplight,” Hanshaw described it.

Henshaw has firsthand experience with the challenges of life without broadband at the small hardware store his family owns.

“There are days when we have trouble processing a credit card sale,” he said.

One part of the new law aims to prevent delays like those KentuckyWired has faced when trying to get access to utility poles. Another section encourages West Virginia communities to band together so that, like the Letcher County Broadband Board, they can apply for federal money.

Hanshaw said that West Virginia has failed to take advantage of that funding for the past several years, likely because the law didn’t explicitly allow for communities to form internet co-ops.

The law passed the West Virginia legislature with ease.

“There’s just no excuse for service being so poor that we can’t process a credit card sale,” Hanshaw said. “I think that message has been communicated very clearly to all 134 members of our legislature by their constituents.”

Hopeful Signals

It may still be years before these communities get access to broadband internet. But in places like Linefork where people are coming together, hope is within reach.

And that’s what Jamelia Lewis is holding onto. “I’m just hoping my little boy can do his homework.”