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

Edible Mountain – Mayapple, The Most Harvested Plant In Appalachia

Native Appalachian plants are a largely untapped and understudied natural resource. The mayapple is a prime example. Wild-crafted for generations, studies now reveal the plant has life-saving properties.

Dr. Eric Burkhart, a field botany expert, explains the uses of mayapple, and how it could be a special crop that offers economic befits throughout the Appalachian region.

EDIBLE MOUNTAIN – Mayapple, the most harvested plant in Appalachia

Edible Mountain is a bite-sized, digital series that showcases some of Appalachia’s overlooked and underappreciated products of the forest while highlighting their (mostly forgotten) uses. Many episodes follow an expert in the field (from botanists to conservationists), whom provides the viewer with insight on how to sustainably forage these delicacies. Many of the episodes explore the preparation of these amazing delectables, something that many could achieve in the home kitchen.

Disclaimer: Folks. We hope that you take caution when entering the forest. Please, always be aware of your surroundings, while treading lightly, so as to not disturb the natural joy and wonder that our wilderness provides.

While most of the flora or fauna described in Edible Mountain has been identified by experts in the field, it is critical to your health and safety that you properly ID any item in the forest before eating it, let alone touching it. If you are uncertain about anything, then please leave it alone and ask for an expert’s advice. Many dangerous plants and fungi share similar properties which make them easily confused with their non-lethal relatives

West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) wants you to discover, protect, and enjoy your natural surroundings. We do not want to see you harmed. Please harvest sustainably so that the bounty can be enjoyed by future generations.

The information contained within Edible Mountain is for general information purposes only. WVPB assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents on this Service. WVPB make no guarantees as to the accuracy of the information presented, and any action you take upon the information in this program is strictly at your own risk.

In no event shall WVPB or contributors be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. WVPB reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modification to the contents on the Service at any time without prior notice.

Have fun and explore.

Edible Mountain – How To Make Sassafras Tea

Sassafras root makes an excellent tea. Learn the right way to do it from naturalist Bill Beatty!

Edible Mountain is a bite-sized, digital series from WVPB that showcases some of Appalachia’s overlooked and underappreciated products of the forest, while highlighting their mostly forgotten uses.

The series features experts, from botanists to conservationists, who provide insight on how to sustainably forage these delicacies. It also explores the preparation of these amazing delectables, something that many could achieve in the home kitchen.

You can find more information about Bill Beatty and his adventures in the wilds as well as a wonderful cook book for foragers at https://wvbirder.wordpress.com

Have fun and explore.

Report Urges Merging Governing Boards of 4 Colleges

A report looking at higher education in West Virginia has recommended merging the governing boards of Bluefield State College, Concord University, Glenville State College and West Virginia State University.

The report labels those four schools “medium risk to high risk” in sustainability. It says the four are “sustainable in the short-term, but their futures are uncertain.” The report recommended the move, in the short term, for Bluefield and Concord, and in the long term for Glenville and WVSU.

The document cited declining enrollment and increasing reliance on enrollment rather than state funding, plus competition for students from West Virginia and Marshall universities, according to news outlets.

The report, which includes other recommendations, was issued by the nonprofit National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

It also lists negative effects of the state government’s decisions to separate community colleges from public four-year schools, weaken the power of the state Higher Education Policy Commission and cut higher education funding.

The recommendations include “leaving open” that Concord and Bluefield “could become a single accredited institution” and “the potential of including New River Community and Technical College within the new structure while retaining its unique mission as a community college,” the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

And at a time when the presidents of WVU, Marshall and Concord are to co-chair Gov. Jim Justice’s newly formed group to study the funding and sustainability of higher education, the report notes that a “major obstacle to collaboration with West Virginia University or Marshall University is a fear that the larger institutions will collaborate only out of their self-interest to stifle competition or ultimately take over the smaller institutions.”

WVU Communications Office Senior Executive Director John Bolt said Tuesday he could not respond to the report in detail.

“Nevertheless, I can say without equivocation that West Virginia University is not predatory,” he said.

Bluefield President Marsha Krotseng said it would not be appropriate to comment until reviewing the report thoroughly.

In a statement, Concord President Kendra Boggess suggested that the data in the report are accurate, but said a Bluefield/Concord consolidation is “only one potential option that should be considered.”

The report says that, “in the longer-term … all the regional institutions are at risk of failure. However, that risk varies significantly.”

Regional institutions are defined as all public four-year schools but WVU, Marshall, their branch campuses and the School of Osteopathic Medicine, in Lewisburg, according to the report.

The report said that for the institutions at highest risk, Bluefield and Concord, “the challenges are so serious that only a major restructuring will preserve postsecondary education opportunity for students in Southern West Virginia. “Implementing this restructuring will require external pressure, leadership, and on-going facilitation to mandate and implement a consolidation of academic, student and administrative capacity of the two institutions.”

An Urban Agriculture Law Ruffles Feathers in Morgantown

Tracey Lea Frisch loves her pet chickens, which she keeps in her yard on the side of her house in the Hopecrest neighborhood in Morgantown.

“This is Pudding and Vanilla and Mr. Looster and Lucky and Star and Moonlight and that’s Roadrunner, and that’s Fluffy – the big one,” she said as she fed them grapes. “I have one broody; she’s pretending to have chicks. It’s not going to happen.”

But last fall, thirty of Frisch’s neighbors sued her, alleging that the chickens smelled bad, were noisy, ran wild and brought down property values. Locally, the chickens have become a sort of cultural phenomenon. They are now known as the “Hopecrest Chickens” – some dedicated community members have even created a Facebook page and a Youtube channel on their behalf. Fun aside, the issues brought up in the case represented a larger discussion about growing vegetables and fruits and raising livestock in cities, a practice known as urban agriculture.

More cities in the U.S. are experimenting with urban agriculture, by growing crops on roofs or indoors with the help of LED lighting. Rick Snuffer, the state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency, said that the USDA’s push for urban agriculture isn’t only fueled by aesthetic and environmental concerns, but by a sustainable one too. As the country’s population grows, there’s less land on which to grow food to feed them.

Morgantown residents Jodie Rose and Jonah Katz dressed up as the Hopecrest Chickens for Halloween in 2015.

“There are six million dollars in food that has to be brought into West Virginia every year that could be grown here in West Virginia,” he said. “It’s imported from other states or countries. And, that’s one of the things the Commissioner of Agriculture is very concerned about – how can we create more of those crops at home?”

Yet urban agriculture is rare in West Virginia, and in Morgantown, a proposed urban agriculture ordinance combined with the Hopecrest Chicken lawsuit has sparked a prolonged debate between neighbors about who can garden what and where. The ordinance first entered the public’s eye in April 2015, and was modeled after an urban agriculture ordinance passed in Charleston.

“It was viewed as an opportunity to put land into productive use that was otherwise sitting vacant, and to encourage home gardeners and others to practice some of their own food production,” said Jim Kotcon, a professor of plant pathology at West Virginia University who also serves on the Morgantown Municipal Green Team. He helped draft the original version of the ordinance. “Given the long-running desire for fresh vegetables and fruits, and the ability to promote local foods, it was viewed as a positive opportunity and many viewed it as such at that time.”

Then, a couple of months before the Hopecrest Chickens lawsuit was served, city council discussed a more restrictive draft of the ordinance. It would put tighter limits on how much livestock residents could own, possibly require permits to build structures like doghouses or trellises and restrict how close those structures could be to the neighbor’s yard. Though some gardeners believe that this ordinance discourages urban agriculture, others appreciate some restrictions.

“They haven’t mowed. They have not weeded at all,” said Kevin Downey, a longtime Morgantown resident, of his neighbor’s front yard. “You can see the watermelons has grown through there so you can’t get a lawn mower in there. The trellis – you can see it’s made out of pipes, metals, plastics, pieces of wood, pieces of anything. I don’t know, personally I don’t think it belongs in the front yard.”

Axel Anderson, 10, picks raspberries from his mother’s garden in Morgantown.

Kotcon says the issue of who gets to garden what isn’t a petty one at all. On a global scale, being able to self-sustain is important to a country’s national security. On the backyard scale, he thinks gardening is a radical act, and being able to grow one’s own food especially resonates with young people.

“It is the fundamental right of each person to wrest a living from the land, free of any corporate control, working with nature to create their food and perhaps a surplus for sale and profit,” he said. “That is something inherently American.”

It’s unclear when Morgantown’s proposed ordinance will return to the city council agenda. But until then, some residents will continue doing what they love best – growing and eating the food they grow in their own backyards.

They Are Trying To Change The World–One Basement System At A Time

It’s dark. It’s damp. It’s your basement, or crawl space. And for some people in Clarksburg, it’s a labor of love to go down there and find ways to improve energy efficiency.

Basement Systems of West Virginia does work to improve the energy efficiency of homes by encapsulating crawl spaces. That means they take materials, similar to pool liner, and other things to create what they call “clean spaces.”

It’s their hope to improve conditioning and energy efficiency in these dim, dark places.

“We live in a day and age when environmental issues are very important, people are concerned about their impact on the environment. What we’re doing here is helping to reduce energy use,” said Colin Reger, of Basement Systems.

To many people, doing work down in a crawl space may seem intimidating. Randy Shillingburg, who is the director of business development for Basement Systems, says many homeowners don’t even go into their crawl spaces but a few times in a decade.

“It’s out of sight, out of mind. I don’t want to go down there because I know it’s dirty,” he said.

“If you went to probably 9 out of every 10 homes that are being built today, you would find a very thin layer of plastic on the dirt ground, and over time, you will find problems.”

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