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Tucker Co. Eighth Graders Take Part In Years-Long WVU Experiment

Since 1989, West Virginia University scientists have been studying the environmental effects of acid rain in the Fernow Experimental Forest in Tucker County. Eighth-grade students will soon get to help.

An experiment 30 years in the making will involve eighth graders from Tucker County in its next phase.

Since 1989, West Virginia University scientists have been studying the environmental effects of acid rain in the Fernow Experimental Forest in Tucker County.

Edward Brzostek, associate professor of biology, said until 2020 scientists were artificially acidifying the forest’s watersheds.

“They were dumping nitrogen and sulfur onto this whole forest and watershed to mimic what was coming out of coal fired power plants and leading to acid rain across the region,” he said.

That phase of the experiment ended in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a lapse in funding and restrictions prevented the continued artificial acidification. Now, Brzostek and his team will track different ecosystems within the forest as they recover.

He says the forest has already proven itself to be a strong training ground for graduate students and can do the same for middle schoolers living in the area.

“One of the things we did in this project is design a number of activities to bring the students out into the field, have them collect real data, have them analyze that data and actually learn about all this science that’s going on right in their backyard that they just aren’t aware of,” Brzostek said.

A recent five-year award from the National Science Foundation’s Long Term Research in Environmental Biology program will support continued study on the topic by WVU, the U.S. Forest Service and local students.

W.Va. First Foundation Elects Board Members

The foundation will handle 72.5 percent of the state’s settlement funds, while 24.5 percent will go to local governments. The remaining three percent will be held by the state in escrow to cover any outstanding attorney’s fees.

Through settlements from various lawsuits with opioid manufacturers and distributors, West Virginia stands to gain about $1 billion over the next 10 to 15 years.

The money should be used for recovery and prevention programs. To make sure it is spent correctly, the West Virginia Legislature created the West Virginia First Foundation to distribute those settlement funds in the 2023 regular session. Senate Bill 674 legally recognizes the creation of the foundation. It was signed into law on March 11.

The board includes 11 members, six selected by the counties and five appointed by the governor. All six regions elected their representatives this week via a quorum of elected officials from the towns, cities and counties of each region.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey addressed the vital need for fiscal responsibility in distributing these funds, noting the time it could take to receive all abatement funding.

“Some of our settlements, we negotiated upfront one-year flat fee, but many others were two years, five years, 10, 15 years, and it goes out over a period of time,” Morrisey said. “That’s why it’s really important that financial management is part of this process as well, so that the money doesn’t get squandered, and that there’s a lot of planning for the future.”

The board members will make decisions about how the funds will be distributed. An “expert panel” will be formed after the board is seated to advise in these funding decisions.

Dr. Michael “Tony” Kelly of Raleigh County was the first board member selected on July 5 to represent Region 6. Kelly was joined July 12 by Berkeley County Community Corrections Director Timothy Czaja and Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce, selected to represent Region 2 and Region 3 respectively.

Per the memorandum of understanding that frames the settlement distribution, board members will serve staggered terms of three years. An Executive Director will be appointed by the Attorney General and approved by the board.

At the Region 5 West Virginia First Foundation Regional Selection Meeting, Dr. Matthew Christiansen was elected to represent Cabell, Clay, Boone, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam, Mason, Mingo and Wayne Counties.

Region-5-West-Virginia-Foundation-Regional-Selection-Meeting Download

Christiansen is also West Virginia’s State Medical Director and the Commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau of Public Health.

“These dollars in the foundation are state dollars, but my appointment on this board is through Region Five. If there is a potential conflict of interest there, I could recuse myself from those votes,” Christiansen said. “But I think the importance here is transparency and accountability around where the money is going so that everyone can see that that there are no nefarious issues that are happening that that would account for that. But as it currently stands, I don’t see any necessary areas of overlap where that might be an issue.”

At the meeting members of the Kanawha County Commission also voted to require board meetings of the foundation be conducted in compliance with the West Virginia Open Meetings Act.

While Morrisey highlighted the need for transparency, he also said many questions won’t be answered until the board is seated.

“I think that as time goes forward, once that board gets constituted, I think they will be setting up a lot of the rules of the road in terms of how there’ll be interactions and I encourage, strongly encourage public processes where people get to participate,” Morrisey said. “So, I think that’s important. I think the goal of this was to have an open, transparent process, but also be able to bring experts together and to allow for some expertise and deliberation as well.”

Region 4 elected Marion County businessman Jonathan Board to represent them on the board Thursday. The region covers 13 counties including Monongalia, Marion, Preston, Taylor, Doddridge, Harrison, Barbour, Tucker, Gilmer, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur and Randolph.

Board says West Virginia has a unique opportunity to address the issues opioids have caused and stop the destruction.

“The question is what happens to the next generation, we are teetering on complete catastrophe,” Board said. “That’s why this is a beautiful thing where we can step in and say, we’re going to stem the tide. We’re going to fill the gap. And we’re going to find solutions. But we have to do it now.”

He acknowledged that although every community represented by the board is facing the same issue, each community will require a different approach to a solution.

“I think that’s what’s so special about this opportunity,” Board said. “Our needs in Elkins and in Fairmont, and in Morgantown and in Harrison County, they’re all different. We’re dealing with the same challenge. But it needs different solutions. And that’s why this is really valuable.”

Board also said there will need to be a robust vetting process to ensure the money is spent correctly and with communities’ best interests in mind.

This is not the first time the state has received a large amount of money to address chronic issues. At Thursday’s meeting David Street, a member of the Barbour County Commission and director of an hospital emergency department, brought up the issue of trying to administer federal broadband money appropriately.

“I live in this world every day, and every night at the commission meetings,” Street said. “My observation is this: in both worlds, I’m seeing 501(C)3s and groups pop up like a plague. It disgusts me.”

Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom, who led the Region 4 meeting, thanked Street for his comment.

“First it was broadband, now its opioid funding,” Bloom said. “All county commissions are dealing with that. I think that’s a concern that you brought up and I’m sure, you can look at several of the other commissioners shaking their heads. ”

After the meeting, Bloom echoed Morrisey and said electing the board is only the first step.

“There’s an expertise committee, and another regional committee, which we have no idea how to set that up yet or what we’re doing,” Bloom said. “I am just glad that this is over.”

On the agenda for Thursday’s meeting was also a discussion regarding best practices for the board. As in Region Five the previous day, the elected officials voted unanimously to require that the by-laws of the West Virginia First Foundation require all board meetings be conducted in compliance with the Open Meetings Act.

“We made it very clear that Region Five, Region Four are adamant, unanimously that these meetings need to be open, so everyone understands how the process is, where the money’s going, and how it’s going to be spent,” Bloom said. “We’re very worried. We don’t want to see a continuance of what happened with the tobacco, we don’t want to continue to what’s going on with broadband.”

Bloom says the region will submit the names of the other candidates to Gov. Jim Justice to be considered for his five appointments to the board.

No selections have been made by the executive office, according to the latest report from Justice’s office. It is not clear what will happen if Justice’s selections are not made clear by the Monday, July 17 deadline. The governor’s selections are subject to confirmation by the Senate.

According to Morrisey’s Press Secretary, John Mangalonzo, the regional selections still have to be certified.

“Keep in mind that an accounting firm has seven days from the date of the election to certify the votes and submit the certified results to the AG’s and governor’s offices,” Mangalonzo said in an email.

Region 1: Steven Corder
Region 2: Tim Czaja
Region 3: Parkersburg Mayor Tom Joyce
Region 4: Jonathan Board
Region 5: Dr. Matthew Christiansen
Region 6: Dr. Tony Kelly

Justice’s office did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publishing.

Corridor H Parsons To Davis Comment Period Is Extended

Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a law firm that’s fought mountaintop removal mining, requested a 45-day extension from the original public comment deadline of Dec. 12.

The West Virginia Division of Highways and the Federal Highway Administration have extended the comment period for the Parsons-to-Davis section of Corridor H to Jan. 6, 2023.

Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a law firm that’s fought mountaintop removal mining, requested a 45-day extension from the original public comment deadline of Dec. 12.

Environmental groups oppose the state’s preferred routing of Corridor H between the two Tucker County communities because of its proximity to the Blackwater Canyon.

They’ve been pushing for a northern alternative around the community of Thomas.

The DOH has said its preferred route is less expensive to build and more direct.

Corridor H is a top priority for the state’s leading elected officials. The road has a few gaps left to complete from I-79 to the Virginia border, including the Parsons-to-Davis portion.

To comment on the project, follow this link.

Surge Of New Visitors Pressures Tucker County, W.Va.’s Towns And Wild Places

Tucker County, West Virginia, has seen a surge of new visitors in the years since U.S. 48 opened from Washington, D.C.

Drawn by nearly 130,000 of acres of rugged state and federal land, these new visitors have seen the previous drive four or five hours up winding mountain roads shrunken down to less than three hours along the road, also known as Corridor H — easy, breezy four-lane highway. The growing number of visitors has boosted business, but it’s also strained the resources of a county with one stoplight and just 7,000 year-round residents.

Maddy Carter of Washington, D.C., visited the Tucker County town of Thomas on a recent Saturday in May. She and a friend perused vintage clothes at Quattro Music Co. and Frock and Roll Vintage.

“We looked at getaways close enough that we could get to for a long weekend,” Carter said. “And we heard lots of good things about Thomas.”

Thomas sits up on a mountain; even in May, threatening clouds filled the skies and occasionally throw down snow flurries. But the weather didn’t deter the numerous pedestrians busy exploring Thomas’ art galleries and shops.

“When I ask people where they’re from, it’s now 80% ‘D.C. Beltway, D.C. Beltway, D.C. Beltway, Northern Virginia,” said Quattro, the record store owner.

Darrin and Nikki Queen drove up from nearby Upshur County — a tradition they started as teens and now as a married couple. They can see the change just on social media.

“Now, it’s like an Instagram spot,” said Nikki Queen. “Now, it’s like everyone has to come and have their Instagram photos there.”

It’s true that Tucker County makes for great photos. Elected officials have expanded public land around Davis and Thomas for decades, both through the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge and Dolly Sods Wilderness.

With the pandemic driving everyone outside, Tucker County is seeing more people than ever. That’s good for business. But it’s also created problems, especially for working people in the area, said Quattro.

With many owners of rental properties converting them from annual leases to Airbnb properties, “ our service staff can’t afford to live here,” Quattro said. “They’re being moved to Parsons, which is 15 miles down the mountain, which on a good day is 15-20 minutes drive. On a bad, foggy, trafficky behind-truck day, it’s a half-an-hour-plus drive.”

Many of the county’s current residents found the county through outdoor recreation. Matt Marcus first visited in 1984, and decided to stick around. He now works at Blackwater Bikes in the town of Davis. Over the years, he’s grown frustrated with public land expansions and the way they’ve fueled the rapid growth in visitors, which puts more stress on the people already here.

“Used to be April, November was totally dead around here,” Marcus said. “And then now, it’s just regular business going on [all year long]. And if we have a nice summer, it’s going to be crazy this year.”

That should position the bike shop for a big year. But it’s been hit by pandemic-related supply chain troubles. Marcus says that usually, the shop would have 30 or 40 new bikes available by May. This year, it had two.

“We’re looking at probably the worst year ever, when we should be having our best year ever,” Marcus said.

His co-worker, Sue Haywood, said the county can’t keep up with the new growth.

“A lot of wealthy people are coming in here and buying second homes, but then at the same time like this, the town of Davis doesn’t even have the capacity to change the trash bags in the town park,” Haywood said.

Down the road at Sirianni’s, an Italian restaurant that’s been a cornerstone in Davis since the 80s, co-owner Walt Ranalli felt more optimistic. He pointed to the artistic renaissance in Thomas, and growing opportunities for entrepreneurs.

“It’s so nice to see young people buying the buildings, doing galleries, being able to ship their work all over the world,” Ranalli said. “I don’t think anyone imagined what was going to happen after they opened up that highway. We’re within about a six-hour drive of a quarter of the United States population.”

Ranalli, previously one of the nation’s youngest mayors in Thomas, acknowledged that the towns aren’t keeping up. But he said those problems are solvable with planning and smart investments.

“We only have one stoplight in the county, which is Parsons, and we envision three up here eventually,” Ranalli said.

One story that came up repeatedly involved a policeman setting up to direct traffic at the turnout from Blackwater Falls State Park.

“It took over an hour to get out of the park on a Saturday because the traffic was so backed up,” said Ruth Bullwinkle, the park’s chaplain.

Like a lot of locals, Bullwinkle can see different angles to the growth in visitors.

The good thing is that there are people coming in, there’s money coming into the area that was so depressed, but the bad thing is that a lot of people coming in don’t appreciate the beauty,” Bullwinkle said. “They don’t take care of the creation that’s here.”

Matt Baker, the superintendent at Blackwater Falls State Park, acknowledged that the crush of tourists can create problems, especially at peak times like in fall leaf-looking season. But he added that the flood is also laying the groundwork for the next generation of visitors and adventure seekers.

“Last summer, we saw lots of families [with] young kids that went camping that may never have gone camping,” Baker said. “They fall in love with it. They’re taking their kids 30 years from now.”

Baker said those camping trips happening now will ultimately build the next generation of people who love — and protect — places like Canaan Valley and Dolly Sods.

“Yes, some of our special places are getting more discovered,” Baker said. But “without generating those future people, our protected areas aren’t going to be as special.”

West Virginia Could Play A Role In Revolutionizing How We Travel

Updated on Dec. 18, 2020 at 8:40 a.m.

In October, Gov. Jim Justice and Virgin Hyperloop made a major announcement. West Virginia would be home to the first hyperloop certification center ever in the country.

“For years, I have been saying that West Virginia is the best kept secret on the East Coast, and it’s true,” Justice said in a press release. “Just look at this announcement and all it will bring to our state – investment, jobs and tremendous growth.”

A hyperloop is a new concept for transportation that can move people and goods through pods in a vacuum at roughly 600 mph. To put that into perspective, a hyperloop could theoretically enable travel from Pittsburgh to Chicago in about 40 minutes, or from New York City to Washington, D.C. in just 30.

The hyperloop concept was first proposed by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

Virgin Hyperloop’s new certification center will include a six to seven-mile test tube in the Canaan Valley covering parts of Tucker and Grant counties. The center is expected to be completed in five or six years.

The project may create up to 10,000 construction jobs in that time. Once fully operational, it could employ anywhere from 150 to 200 people with engineering and high-technology backgrounds who either already live in West Virginia or want to move here. West Virginians are expected to be given priority in the hiring process, according to company officials.

Long term, there may be efforts to connect the test track in the Canaan Valley to Morgantown, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Reporter Liz McCormick spoke with Mike Schneider, vice president of project development at Virgin Hyperloop, over Skype to learn more about the certification center, hyperloop technology and what this could mean for West Virginia and the world.

Transcript below. This conversation was edited for clarity.

MCCORMICK: In layman’s terms, what is a hyperloop?

SCHNEIDER: The concept of hyperloop is…it’s almost closer to aviation than it is to a train. It relies upon several technologies that exist but have never been actually combined to form an actual transportation mode. So, the centerpiece of hyperloop technology is a process called magnetic levitation. There’s a series of magnets along the track. And there’s a series of magnets inside the vehicle. And what makes the vehicle move is the pulling function of the magnets on the track, attracting the magnets on the vehicle. But if you put that system inside a tube, and then evacuate the air, so there is essentially no friction — because it’s the air friction, which is largely a deterrent to speed — but if you remove the friction component, then have it operate in effectively a vacuum, there’s almost no limitation to how fast those magnets can pull the vehicle without there being any air resistance. So, that’s what allows us to get up to 650 or 700 mph within the tube once evacuated of air.”

MCCORMICK: What will the certification center in the Canaan Valley be doing?

SCHNEIDER: The first step is evolving and proving the technology works at scale, meaning at speed. You probably have seen videos or reports of our recent successes with our initial, much, much shorter test track in the Nevada desert above Las Vegas, where we have actually achieved speeds in a very short tube, about a third of a mile. We achieved speeds of about 250 mph, which obviously is an acceleration that humans couldn’t withstand. But it has proved the concept of magnetic levitation in a vacuum tube. And then of course, just a couple of weeks ago, we did put two live people in a vehicle and did demonstrate that we can move people in a vehicle in a vacuum tube. We of course didn’t take it up to that speed; they achieved about 110 mph within the third of a mile. But we proved for the first time ever that people could ride in a hyperloop vehicle. So, the real purpose [of the certification center] is to have a facility where the technology can evolve, be tested, and be used with government observers and monitors to assure that all of the safety provisions are embedded, and that it is indeed safe and therefore can be certified. So, that’s the ultimate mission.

MCCORMICK: Why West Virginia?

SCHNEIDER: We chose West Virginia for a number of reasons. All of which are very, very relevant. We had four basic criteria. One, what were the corridors that were being offered? What were the alignments? Would they work for hyperloop as a test track with respect to the speed and alignment that we wanted to achieve? Secondly, what kind of funding and financing proposals were being proffered by the states to partner with us? What kind of incentives and packages were being put on the table for our review? Thirdly, what was the composition of the team? Who would we be working with? Who was leading the team? What organizations, public and private, would comprise those teams? And finally, what kind of overall support was there? Political, community, business? And frankly, West Virginia, scored exceptionally highly on all four of those. And in the end, it was not a difficult decision.

MCCORMICK: Was West Virginia’s workforce something you took into consideration when you were considering the location in Grant and Tucker counties?

SCHNEIDER: We know that the location is not in the middle of Los Angeles or Dallas or even Kansas City, but on the other hand, the commitment that [West Virginia] seems to be already making to both education, to job training, to employment growth, to a focus and a movement from an extraction economy, in many ways to a high technology economy. All of that was quite compelling to us. We knew there weren’t hundreds of thousands of workers living in Tucker and Grant counties at this point, but we also knew that this was an area that, over time, would be developing in a number of different ways, and we felt that the attraction of this high technology enterprise would be quite a stimulus for both local residents, those in school in West Virginia, and others from around the country who would move to West Virginia because of the opportunity to work on this project.

MCCORMICK: How do you envision a project of this magnitude affecting West Virginia’s image throughout the rest of the country?

SCHNEIDER: I think it’s best summed up by what Gov. Jim Justice told me when I first came to the state a year ago to take a look at the opportunity and to talk to our potential partners. Justice said in his characteristic style, ‘you will find out that we are the can-do state. If we say we’re going to make this happen and be your partner, we will.’ When you’ve had as many decades working with elected officials as I have, you take that with a bit of a grain of salt. But he was absolutely right. It was uncanny how enthusiastic everyone from the research community, the university community, the private sector, the state has been about this. And one of the things that we really like is the notion that we can be part of, I guess what I would call a transformative project, that everyone we’ve talked to in the state feels will do a great deal to help advance the economy and put the state on the map as an emerging, advanced technology center.

MCCORMICK: Looking nationwide, what do you think the impact will be from this certification center? On the country and the world as we explore how we are going to travel in the future?

SCHNEIDER: It’s time for two things to happen. We haven’t had a new mode of transportation in over 100 years. I think it’s time. Secondly, we want to take the status of our planet seriously, and we need to find new methods of utilizing less energy and having less impact on the environment. So, you know, while there are states in the country that I think might be viewed as having a greener ethic than one would think of West Virginia — I’m not sure that’s true. I think there’s a great desire to support a new direction, and I think having the technology development and deployment centered in West Virginia is going to be very positive for the state. Think about what Houston was before the Space Center was put there in the 1960s. Houston went from, kind of the home of the energy elite and the oil and gas industry to the space center capital of the world. And it didn’t take more than a decade or so for that to happen. I’m not sure that [hyperloop is] on that grand a scale, but it’s not a bad comparison.

Civil Rights Legend J.R. Clifford Dies: October 6, 1933

Civil rights trailblazer J. R. Clifford died on October 6, 1933, at age 85. A native of present-day Grant County, he served in an African American unit during the Civil War. Afterward, he taught at a black school and founded Martinsburg’s Pioneer Press, the first black-owned newspaper in West Virginia. He used its editorial pages to fight for better economic and social conditions for African Americans.

Five years later, Clifford became West Virginia’s first African American attorney. In this role, he fought landmark trials against racial discrimination. In the case of a Tucker County teacher, he was one of the first lawyers in the nation to successfully challenge segregated schools. He also helped organize a national civil rights meeting in Harpers Ferry that was a springboard for the N.A.A.C.P.

In 1917, he wrote a series of forceful editorials opposing U.S. involvement in World War I. In response to the criticism, the government shut down the Pioneer Press—after 35 years in print—for violating postal laws. Today, Clifford is remembered as one of the great civil rights leaders in West Virginia and the nation.