W.Va. Water Trails Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

W.Va. Water Trails: Retired W.Va. DEP Inspector Reflects On Stream Restoration Work

For decades, waterways in West Virginia have been used for dumping everything from coal waste to car tires. Restoring them will take years of work. Part of that work involves restructuring streams so that they support fish habitat.

Retired Department of Environmental Protection Inspector Bill Simmons was instrumental in bringing a restoration method to West Virginia streams. The method adds structures in the water way that slow down the water flow and provide fish habitat. It all started on a float trip on the Little Coal River. That’s when Simmons got a call that there was a fish kill upstream. Jessica Lilly spoke with Simmons about that experience and about the importance of restoring West Virginia streams.

This story is the final of a series called West Virginia Water Trails. Hear stories from people coming together across southern West Virginia, to create new economies and communities- with waterways. It’s made possible in part by the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Lilly: When you found the fish kill, what kind of things were in the water? What is it that we’re talking about that had to be removed and fixed?

Simmons: Well, what happened in the fish kill, and that happened on Pond Fork of the Little Coal River, was a chemical spill that they used to treat preparation plant water, and somehow a tank was hit and opened and killed fish for like five or six miles downstream. They turned the tank off, the flow off.

What we did was that we asked the coal company to do the stream restoration plan. Stock that section of a stream for five years with trout during the normal trout stocking seasons. They had an annual trash clean up on that section of stream where we had the fish kill and plus the work they had to do around the mountainside to prevent that from happening again.

Lilly: Traditionally in West Virginia, when you talk to communities, people remember black water flowing through the rivers, they remember that.

Simmons: There’ve been a lot of “Wow!” moments. I learned a lot about bug life and what lives in sand and what lives in rocks, and actually wouldn’t, when the structures were being built.

So you’d have an excavator in the stream digging out prior to the structure. It was kind of like going through a history of coal mining where you might find a quarter inch of black sediment and you go down a few more feet and you find two feet, or you know, six inches or four inches. The layers of black sediment got bigger and bigger, the deeper you went. And there were several times when the excavator would dig into the bottom of the stream. And it was like a fresh black water spill, that stuff was still there. It was like a history of the river.

Now when you look at the river, the amazing thing is the sand was not always white along the river. It had the coal stain to it but now we got white beaches all up and down the river., There was a lot of work and cooperation between the DNR (Division of Natural Resources) and the mining companies and all up there was a lot of people that did the right thing to make the black water and in the streams better.

Jessica: What does it mean to you now, when you go down there, and you see those white beaches on the Little Coal River specifically?

Simmons: It’s just, it feels good. You know, and we’re still working on it. I mean, we got a lot to do. The studies we have now show that the structures work, but we got areas in between structures where we need to add more structures. So we’re still working on it.

Lilly: Anything else you want to add that I’m missing?

Simmons: Well, the Little Coal like all the other streams in southern West Virginia has had a historical trash problem. And fortunately, we’re looking better here. You don’t see as much of it. The ecology of the streams is way better than it used to be.

You can't expect volunteers to pick up trash all the time. They'll do it. But they need help. People don't want to come and look at trash. People love it down here, but they can't stay in the trash.

Bill Simmons, Retired DEP Inspector

But as the mining activity decreases in West Virginia, we need to look ahead, but the hard part is, especially with state government, you say the legislature and our Department of Commerce and Parks and Tourism talk about bringing more tourism into the state. As a little canoe and kayak operator person and working with the Coal River Group volunteering, the trash is a thing. When I had my kayak rental business, I had people from all over the country coming in here and I’d say, “How was your float?” and they would say “Ah, it was beautiful, except for the tires in the river.”

We can’t expect volunteers to pick up all his trash. We need help to motivate people where it’s financially putting deposits on bottles, but something needs to happen. So if we could put a bounty like $2 a tire, I mean, you can have all kinds of fundraisers where you get these high school football players and these guys in the summertime pulling tires out. Instead of putting kids on some kind of work program, they’re gonna get paid for how much work they do, and not sitting around for an hour. Give these kids $2 for a tire to get them out of here. I think it’d be a heck of a way and then the REAP (Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan) guys would come pick them up and haul them away.

You can’t expect volunteers to pick up trash all the time. They’ll do it. But they need help. People don’t want to come and look at trash. People love it down here, but they can’t stay in the trash.

Small Businesses Take Initiative To Restore Nostalgic ‘Gilbert Beach’ In Mingo County

After years of neglect, a river access point called Gilbert Beach at Veterans Park is getting new life. The motivation to restore Gilbert Beach is about one part nostalgia, one part tourist attraction and two parts community service.

This segment is the seventh in an audio series called West Virginia Water Trails. Hear stories from people coming together across southern West Virginia, to create new economies and communities- with waterways. It’s made possible in part by the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

In the town museum surrounded by Gilbert High memorabilia, artifacts of famous boxers and RC Cola bottles, lifelong resident David Fox points to an older black-and-white photo of Gilbert Beach during its ‘heyday’.

“Right here on the bottom is one of the boarding houses that used to cater to the travelers that used to come in and spend time on the beach,” Fox said.

He grew up in Gilbert in the ’40s and ’50s and remembers trains coming from Huntington hauling visitors to spend the day on the GIlbert Beach.
“I swam there many times growing up,” Fox said. “We used to hang out there. We used to swim all the time anywhere in the river.”

Fox remembers when the water in the Guyandotte River was deeper along the river bank. Things changed after the R.D. Bailey Dam was completed in 1980.

“Because of the dam and the water and all of the holes that filled up with the silt,” Fox said, swimming holes “are not as deep as they used to be.”

David Fox shares stories of swimming in the Guyandotte River while growing up in Gilbert during the 1940s and 1950s.

While the holes filled up, the sand changed color and brush began to creep in.

“I remember it used to be pure white sand. Then in the ’50s, we didn’t have the environmental laws that we have now,” Fox said, “a lot of coal mines dumped their waste in the river and you’d have these black streaks.”

The once white Gilbert Beach in Mingo County was neglected for years. But in just two short years, Mayor Jennifer Miller says local businesses and many residents have worked to restore the riverbank.

“They got some of the trees and debris that had been there for years and years,” Miller said. “It hadn’t been taken care of for quite some time.”
The businesses and residents donated what they could: their time, equipment and manual labor to help restore Gilbert Beach. Miller expects the work will help provide more activities for visitors and locals.

“We need places for recreation, we need places for folks to be outdoors,” Miller said. “A lot of our elderly population loves to fish, and Veterans Park at the Gilbert Beach is one of the few areas that’s a gentle slope that’s easily accessible to most folks.”

The easier access is already helping residents who live just across the street from the riverbank at a women’s recovery center. Through the pandemic, residents were not allowed to have visitors.

“They were allowed to go over to the park. So it was wonderful for them during that time,” Miller said. “I would just hear story after story from them of how much it meant for them to be outside the connection with nature’s beautiful scenery. It just soothes the soul a little to be in that kind of atmosphere.”

A backhoe works to clear large debris at Gilbert Beach.

The work that went into restoring this Guyandotte river access point started with a logging company clearing large debris. Then word got out and in the paper.

“One day I picked up a Mingo Messenger newspaper down there and I actually think I was just checking out at a gas station and it said, ‘plans to revive Gilbert Beach, 1920 weekend destination,” southern West Virginia business owner Will Daniels said. “The only beach in West Virginia’ and I was like, ‘that’s cool.’”

Small business owner, Will Daniels, paid his workers to clean up Gilbert Bach but didn’t charge the town.

Daniels juggles phone calls and customer service from the breakroom of Dixon’s Automotive Service, a repair shop he owns in neighboring Wyoming County.

In addition to the repair shop, Daniels owns XP Services, a lawn and landscaping business, so sending help just seemed to make sense. It was actually Daniels’ idea to pitch in.

After reaching out to the town of Gilbert, Daniels brought about 12 XP Services employees who worked for about eight hours clearing brush and garbage from the river and riverbanks in Gilbert.

“Tires, there was a lot of metal. I’m even wanting to say there was a railroad track and different parts related to the river that had embedded in the sand and the river,” Daniels said. “A lot of things that just generally plague our streams in West Virginia and times it by 50 to 100 years. It was a task to say the least.”
XP has done paid work for the town of Gilbert, but this job was different. He paid his workers but didn’t take money from the town.

“The guys would have probably come over and done it for free,” Daniels said, “but you’re taking away a day that they could be with their families. This is hard work, and by Saturday they’re tired.”

Daniels says he gives back to the region with labor because that’s the way he was raised and it’s simply the culture of the area.

“Work is respected in West Virginia. Manual labor is respected,” Daniels said. “I want to make this place as good as it can be. I want to give people jobs. I want to give people raises. I want to clean it up. I want to give more opportunities to our kids.”

Workers pulling railroad ties out of the river at Gilbert Beach.

Gilbert Beach at Veterans Park in Mingo County was officially named a Guyandotte access point in April 2020. Miller, Gilbert’s mayor, says Fortner Logging, the small business that helped to get things rolling, is donating more resources to clear large debris this spring. Miller hopes to install a sign and informational kiosk this year as well.

Clean Ups Priority For W.Va. Tourism Educator

Each year, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection selects a Teacher of the Year in the elementary, middle and high school high school levels. In 2021 it wasn’t a science teacher who won but a tourism instructor.

This segment is the sixth in an audio series called West Virginia Water Trails. Hear stories from people coming together across southern West Virginia, to create new economies and communities- with waterways. It’s made possible in part by the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

Rober Miller teaches classes like Outdoor Education, Travel West Virginia and Adventure Tourism at the Boone Career and Technical Center.

Colin Fisher (left), Jaxson Miller, Jacob Pauley, instructor Robert Miller and Lilly Bias (right), pulling tires from the Walhonde Watershed near The Forks of Coal.

“It’s all pretty connected really,” Miller said. “We’re trying to attract tourism to our region. We have a wonderful flatwater water trail that runs through our community and we’re trying to make it all it can be and we’re trying to clean up our roadsides and our water trail to make it a great spot for people to come visit.”

Miller coordinates with students to participate in the annual WV DEP Adopt a Highway cleanups on Route 3. Another clean up that happens twice a year with students is called Celebration of the River.

“This has grown pretty good to where we get down in the water with our kayaks,” he said. “The students of the Boone Career Center here are really the ones that won this Make It Shine Award and the staff here at the Boone Career Center.”

Miller has worked to host clean ups in the region for the past eight years. Miller says it’s important to invite the community as well.

“The whole school participates, everybody gets out, sees what they can do for the community for one day,” Miller said. “We’re trying to change the culture as well. We brought tons and tons of trash over the years out of the river and tires. But the key is changing the culture and that’s what we’re trying to get at.”

Miller says field trips help to get students thinking.

“You look at the county over when we take our field trips, we’re not seeing the amount of trash,” Miller said. “That’s a question that I posed to our students and we discuss this and debate this. To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure that there is an exact answer, not a not a good one.

Adventure Tourism student Jordan Dillon loads a kayak into a W.Va. river.

“Trash is never good,” Miller continued, “but we hope to, through education, change that to where it’s no longer it’s all or okay for anyone to just dispose of their trash out the window of their car or leave the trash beside the riverbank. It’s a sad thing. There’s not enough money to enforce such things.”

Some of Miller’s students join volunteer clean up crews such as “Trash Your Kayak WV” after graduation.

Lilly Bias, 19, is one of Miller’s former students. He invited Bias to attend a clean up on a river with the Trash Your Kayak WV cleanup crew.

“Through that event we learned how great cleaning up the river was and how fun it was,” Bias said, “which was surprising to us.”

Bias had such a good time, she organized her own clean up last year with 100 volunteers.

“Once you’re part of Trash Your Kayak, you cannot get out,” Bias said. “When you’re experienced, you want to keep coming back and want to keep hanging out with these great people who are trying to better the community.”

Miller and his students also built a Chimney Swift tower, a habitat for the elusive and endangered birds, and picnic tables for the Forks of Coal, an education and outreach organization.

The next clean up for Boone County students is set for Friday, April 29.

W.Va. Water Trails: Women Led River Clean Up Crew Inspires New Generation To ‘Trash Your Kayak’

Michelle Martin is leading a charge to clean up the Little Coal River and turning the trash into treasures.

Tons of trash and thousands of tires have been removed from West Virginia’s rivers. The work is often spearheaded by West Virginians who just want to enjoy a peaceful float trip in their state. Michelle Martin is leading one charge to clean up the Little Coal River and turning the trash into treasures.

This story is the fifth of a series called West Virginia Water Trails. Hear stories from people coming together across southern West Virginia, to create new economies and communities- with waterways. It’s made possible in part by the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

Martin still gets excited about cleaning up the rivers in southern West Virginia. She’s an accountant by day and a self-dubbed river tire rescuer on the weekend. It started back in 2016 during a trip with her sister on the Little Coal River in Boone County.

“We were just in awe of the beauty of the clear water, the landscape,” Martin said. “But then it kept being scarred by tires and trash. So one day she said, ‘Let’s get this tire’ and I said okay let’s get it. To our surprise we were able to wrangle it up on one of our kayaks and we floated it several miles downstream.”

*Michelle Martin during a trip on the river while collecting trash.*

Martin always carries plastic bags with her to collect trash while she floats. Eventually, it adds up and the kayak starts to look, well … trashy. So, she embraced the idea and started a Facebook group called Trash Your Kayak Clean Up Crew WV.

“We want to inspire other people who are out kayaking because thousands in the summer time are out kayaking the rivers every weekend. So while you’re out there, take five or ten minutes of your time, take a little bag of trash … take away more than what you brought in.”

And it’s working. She’s proud to say there are more than 800 members in the group. The cover photo shows Martin with several other people, flexing behind a large tire.

*Trash Your Kayak Clean Up Crew after getting a large tire out of the river and on a jon boat.*

“That picture is us getting out ‘Beast 2’ because it’s so big we had to make a plan,” Martin said. “It takes a lot of effort when you’re dealing with a couple hundred pound tire like that. We finally got it up on the jon boat so that was us kind of celebrating like, ‘yeah we did it.’”

The work has inspired young people in the region. One of the Facebook group members is 19 year-old Lilly Bias. She hesitantly joined Martin and her clean up crew on a Saturday morning about two years ago.

“Through that event we learned how great cleaning up the river was and how fun it was,” Bias said, “which was surprising to us.”

*Lilly Bias on a river collecting trash after being inspired by Michelle Martin and the Trash Your Kayak Clean Up Crew.*

Bias had such a good time, that she ventured back out on the river a few weekends later for a clean up with her mother. Then, Bias organized her own clean up last year with 100 volunteers.

“Once you’re part of Trash Your Kayak, you can not get out,” Bias said. “When you’re experienced, you want to keep coming back and want to keep hanging out with these great people who are trying to better the community.”

Each cleanup is a chance to take part in a little friendly competition in the Facebook group to see who can collect the most tires. It’s also an opportunity to find treasures.

*The Facebook page is a place to share ‘treasure’ finds during clean ups.*

A few scrolls down from the cover photo on the Facebook page pulls up images of people and items they’ve collected on the rivers. Martin shared a photo of Daniel, who found a glass piggy bank on the Little Coal River, or as Martin likes to call it, “Coal– Mart”, a play on the names of big retailers.

“We’ll post on Facebook, ‘attention Coal-Mart shoppers, clearance on coolers this weekend’ because we find a lot of coolers on the river,” Martin said.

Martin quickly found that volunteering to clean up the river can get expensive.

“We’ve learned that solid steel shovels which are $30 – $40 work better on prying out tires. I’ve used my own funds but I thought ya know what if we kind of use the boards and things from the river and call it River to Home,” Martin said. “I’m getting things from the river to make art for your home.”

She sells the items at festivals to help offset some of the expenses. She also creates items for gifts and others for her own home. One piece she’s decorated her home with is made of three items she found on the river. One natural item resembles a fish.

Michelle Martin created this piece of art from things she found along rivers in W.Va. She calls it“hooking a river cryptid.” The body was made from driftwood from Kanawha Falls and the wood base and brass stem came out of the Coal River.

The Trash Your Kayak Cleanup Crew plans to join Boone County Career and Technical Center students on the river on April 29th. Volunteers are welcome to join the clean up on the Little Coal River and a provided lunch. You can find more information on the Trash Your Kayak Cleanup Crew Facebook page.

W.Va. Water Trails: Big Coal River Events Bring Pride, Economic Opportunities to Residents

The Big Coal River flows 40 miles through Boone and Lincoln Counties. John Slack Memorial Park is one of nine river access points on the Big Coal in Boone County. The UMWA hosts an annual rally at the park each year. It’s a hotspot for politicians but that’s not all you’ll find in Racine.

This story is the fourth of a series called West Virginia Water Trails. Hear stories from people coming together across southern West Virginia, to create new economies and communities- with waterways. It’s made possible in part by the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

John Slack Memorial Park is kind of the place to be in early September. The United Mine Workers of America hosts annual rallies on Labor Day to celebrate the union. Politicians often give fiery speeches during rallies in Racine.

But there are other times that people make their way to the park in Racine. It’s also a place where Mary Ann Browning helps organize events. She’s lived in Boone County for 83 years.

“The southern part of West Virginia has been hard hit because our main jobs are mining,” Browning said. “We do have mines here, they are still working. But we have tried to reinvent ourselves.”

Big Coal River Access Point Steps into Spotlight

About 15 years ago, Browning and other volunteers got together to use the park for other community events. With easy access to the Big Coal River from the park, they started an annual float trip, in true Boone County style.

Floaters bring kayaks, jon boats and canoes to the river access ramp at John Slack Memorial Park in Racine, W.Va. during Kevin’s Lazy River Adventure Float in 2021.

It’s called Kevin’s Lazy River Adventure, to memorialize the late Kevin Kinder, a well-known Boone County resident who loved the river and passed away in 2002.

Floaters bring kayaks, jon boats and canoes and travel for 10.5 miles on the water.

“We had a ball,” Browning said. “We saw what it was and everybody had a good time and said ‘ya know, we need to start doing this on a regular basis.’”

Kayakers on the Big Coal River during Kevin’s Lazy River Adventure Float.

So they did. The float originally had 50 boats but has swelled to about 800 a year. Organizers formed the Big Coal River Branch Group and got busy to fundraise with sponsors and Bingo events.

And the People Said, “Let them Eat!”

Organizers can’t let folks leave with an empty stomach. So Browning and other volunteers arrange a meal for participants at the end of the float at Dartmont Park.

Organizers supply a picnic for floaters after the Kevin’s Lazy River Adventure Float, 2021.

“It’s a regular West Virginia hoedown picnic with hotdogs and hamburgers,” Browning said. “This past year we also had ribs and chicken. This past year we had about 1,500 people for that and we fed them all.”

Big Coal River People Know How to Help Big

The Big Coal River forms from two tributaries; the Clear Fork and Marsh Fork Streams in Whitesville. It flows mostly Northwest until it joins the Coal River around the community of Alum Creek in Lincoln County.

The Big Coal has provided drinking water, a source for baptisms, and social life with a deep connection to coal production in the region. To prepare for Kevin’s Lazy River Adventure, residents come together to pick up trash.

Teresa Perdue says jumping in to help is what people in Boone County do.

“All I gotta do is write it on Facebook and here they come. They’re just good people,” Perdue said. “You can just post it on there, ‘Hey I need some help,’ and before you know it people’s commenting, ‘We’ll be there, what time?’ and people show up and off to the river we go.”

A lot of the help comes from Perdue’s family and friends. Even children are excited about helping clean up the river before the float.

Children from the local elementary schools join during regular cleanups along the Big Coal River in Boone County.

“All of these small children had their galoshes on. They were ready to work,” Perdue said. “The gloves were too big for their hands but they went and worked hard.”

Next Generation of Floaters

Perdue says the kids leave their galoshes and oversized gloves at home when they return to take part in Kevin’s Lazy River Float. The atmosphere helps bring them back.

“It’s family oriented. Our river is not really deep in a lot of spots, but it’s just deep enough that the kids can also be on their own kayak and come down the river,” Perdue said. “And it’s just beautiful.”

Sherri Sharps has lived in Boone County for more than 30 years. She can see the Big Coal River from her front porch.

Children in kayaks on the Big Coal River during Kevin’s Lazy River Adventure, 2021.

“When you hear those kids giggling and you will hear music playing,” Sharps said, “because they have these little coolers in the back with the radio on top and they’re singing and they’re going down that river and they look up at me and everyone just waves ‘Hi, here I am.’ And to me that’s just an awesome thing.”

Sharp’s husband is a retired United Mine Workers of America coal miner. His job supported the family pretty well, until it didn’t.

“I worked two jobs when my husband got laid off,” Sharps said. “So when you went from a coal mining paycheck to $160 a week, it was a wake up call.”

Paddlers will find Sharps back on dry land at the John Slack Memorial Park every year on the last Saturday of September. Just two months after the float, Sharps organizes the Big Coal River Heritage Festival. The idea is to host only crafts and art made by West Virginians, to support each other.

“It is income, but it’s also to showcase what they make with pride,” Sharps said. “When I go on vacation, I want something made in that area, and that’s what they come here for.”

The first year in 2011, 20 vendors set up shop at the Big Coal River Heritage Festival. This year, Sharps expects 60 West Virginians will bring their handmade treasures. Lifetime resident, Mary Ann Browning, says the West Virginia vendors are thankful for the opportunity to share their work.

Big Coal River Heritage Festival at John Slack Park in Racine, W.Va. 2021.

“(The Festival) brings a lot of the Boone County people out who has been doing all of this artwork in their homes and giving it to their children and their grandchildren and we’ve given them an avenue to sell their stuff.”

Making these events happen along the Big Coal River takes a lot of volunteers and time. Sharps says, it’s always something special.

“If you yell, you’ve got people coming out of the woodwork,” Sharps said. “You don’t find that in the city. It is here. So they need to come here and find out what we’re all about.”

The Big Coal River Heritage Festival is on the last Saturday in September. Kevin’s Lazy River Float on the Big Coal River happens on the last Saturday in July.

W.Va. Water Trails: How Guyandotte River Access Points United A Community

There are 26 official West Virginia Water Trails in the state. Earning the status can take years of work. According to the recently formed West Virginia Flatwater Trails Commission, the status comes with a few conditions including ongoing cleanup efforts and clear access points.

In Lincoln County, creating the access points along the Guyandotte River turned out to be much more than a way to get on the river, it was also a way to unite the community.

This story is the third of a series called West Virginia Water Trails. Hear stories from people coming together across southern West Virginia, to create new economies and communities- with waterways. It’s made possible in part by the National Coal Heritage Area Authority.

Finding a Way Onto the Guyandotte

Just behind the West Hamlin fire station is a path to a river. A quick walk down a grassy hill takes boaters to a concrete pad by the Guyandotte. In this region, accessing the river wasn’t always this simple. In fact, the concrete on this access point was poured in 2019.

Fire Chief Ron Porter remembers the challenges of getting boats on the Guyandotte before the access point.

Slide at Branchland Park after repair work.

“That was tough,” Porter said. “You were fighting briars and brambles and slipping and sliding over the riverbank. And to get that back out was doubly difficult. So you had to drag it up over a riverbank and through all the brush and mud.”

Porter and the department often pitch in to help maintain the access point. He says it’s important for water rescue emergencies. He’s also noticed more people floating and enjoying the water.

“We have a lot of people enjoying kayaking, especially. In the summertime, it’s not unusual to see a dozen or 15 kayaks in our parking lot out here where they’ve taken out on the river,” Porter said. “They’ll park their cars here, go further upstream and put their kayak or canoe or whatever craft they’re using, and paddle, down the river and take out here. [The river] has been utilized a whole lot more now than it ever was.”

Another access point on the guide is at Branchland Park. It was barely noticeable just a few years ago.

“I lived here for years and did not even know that there was a boat dock [at Branchland] because it was just weeds and trees,” Branchland resident Wanda Cremeans said. “You couldn’t see the boat dock.”

Wanda lives along the Guyandotte River not far from the park and entry point. She remembers when the work on the Branchland access point began.

“We started cleaning it up and burning the brush,” Cremeans said. “[We] wanted to get kayaking, going again. We had a lot of people, friends, family, a lot of Cremeans’s jump in there and help with everything. So some of those people have already passed on, just like Tony has.”

Tony Cremeans was her husband. He passed away in 2020. He ran an auto repair shop and was an advocate for recreation on the river.

Wanda and Tony Cremeans at Branchland Park in 2014. Tony Cremeans passed away in 2020.

“He was very community oriented and liked to bring things to Branchland for people to have fun,” she said. “He loved to live life and have fun.”

Wanda, her family and many other volunteers did a lot of work to clean up Branchland Park. Ralph Triplet grew up at Branchland and worked closely with Tony and other volunteers to clean up the park and entry point.

“Everybody’s close in the neighborhood but we kind of partnered up and we said we were kind of tired of the ‘Guyan River’ and the Branchland community having a black eye that it had,” Triplett said. “We thought we would try to clean up the riverbank up there at Branchland a little bit.”

Ralph and other volunteers wanted to bring back the Guyandotte River Regatta that he says was big deal in the 1970’s.

Jerry and Randy Lawson at the finish line at the former bridge at West Hamlin of the River Regatta in the 1970’s.

Guyandotte River Regatta Returns

Work on a river access point is never really done. Triplet says volunteers pitch in annually to pick up
litter. The community also put up artwork painted by Wanda Cremeans that celebrates the river. They also worked with the Coal Heritage Area Authority to put up signs that clearly marked the access points.

Word got out and people from the region started showing up. There was even a kayak rental and shuttle business that opened. With the revived access point, residents worked to host the Guyandotte River Regatta in 2014. Wanda Cremeans remembers cookouts and a car show to go with it.

Guyandotte River Regatta put in at Branchland Park in Lincoln County, W.Va. in 2014.

“It was a fellowship,” she said. “It’s just like a party, like a community party.”

The community party lasted about all weekend. The event was gaining momentum and helping to bring a few smiles back to the Branchland community.

“Branchland didn’t and doesn’t get a lot of events,” she said. “So, it was like, ‘Hey, this is so cool.’ Branchland is doing something.”

Organizations and volunteers who wanted to maintain the Guyandotte Water Trail formed the Guyandotte Water Trail Alliance in 2014. With help from volunteers and the Alliance, the Regatta expanded from Branchland in Lincoln County to four other entry points and counties along the Guyandotte River including Wyoming, Mingo, Logan, and Cabell. With the ongoing clean up efforts and clearly marked access points, the Guyandotte River remains a West Virginia Water Trail.

“This section of the river parallels Route 10,” Ralph Triplett. “You can see the river, the entire course. And there’s various pull offs, people can see it and watch or dance and I think we have a lot of potential for growth on what we have here.”

Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, the Regatta has been canceled the past two years. Plans are underway to bring it back this year. Chief Ron Porter hopes another regatta reignites the momentum and community pride he saw in his hometown before the pandemic.

“We really need jobs and we need the businesses and the opportunity to have more services available,” Porter said. “If tourism, if it can in some way play a role in that, that will be fun. That would be great.”

There’s a lot of work ahead of the community, lots of organizing, fundraising, and even more cleanup along the river. Ralph Triplet says finding a new generation to help will be critical to the success.

“We’re definitely looking for new blood,” Triplet said “A lot of us are, further down the highway, any kind of support that we could get. I hope this works out well for the whole river. So yeah it’s a good undertaking.”

Triplet says work is underway to register the Guyandotte Water Trail Alliance as a 501 c3. There’s another access point on the Guyandotte just outside of West Hamlin called Salt Rock. This site has been closed for a few years.

Other organizers met in 2020 with state officials with plans to create a new access point in Ranger.