CLEAR August 2012

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3 participants
9 discussions

Boat Passage Under Cheat Lake Bridges
by Duane330＠aol.com 28 Aug '12

28 Aug '12

Duane, RE: New Bridge Construction on WV 857 Over Cheat Lake Date: August 28, 2012 The boating access (under the bridges) has not been cut off. It has been and will continue to be open to the public for the remainder of the project. Demolishment has begun on the existing bridge and access is still provided. The only exception to this will be the days that the spans on the existing bridge will be blasted. This will occur around the middle of September. Even then, access will only be temporarily restricted at the time of blasting. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Brett Fellers | Project Engineer, Brayman Construction Corporation >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NOTE: It would appear that the new Bridge should be completed and open to traffic by mid-November, or shortly thereafter (before snow flies, if snow flies this winter). DGN

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Go Jump in the Lake! « EcoWatch
by Duane 24 Aug '12

24 Aug '12

http://ecowatch.org/2012/go-jump-in-a-lake-2/ Go Jump in the Lake! Marc Yaggi This summer, grab your family and make the time to get out and enjoy your local waterway! Whether it’s swimming, surfing, paddling, snorkeling or just laying on the beach and enjoying the sound of surf breaking, take the time to enjoy YOUR right to clean, swimmable waters. Today, we are celebrating Swimmable Action Day—a day to advocate for our right to clean, swimmable waters for all. Why? Because the more we use our waterways, the more we will understand, and value, the importance of clean water to our communities. Access to clean swimmable waters gives us a day of recreation without fear of harmful pollutants, provides a sense of place and inspires us to act as stewards of our waterways. And that is exactly what we need today—an army of informed citizen advocates who understand that everyone has a right to clean water for swimming, drinking and fishing. An informed, active public is the best defense to preventing industrial polluters and corrupt politicians from privatizing our waters. Usually, all it takes to instill this is a meaningful connection—a positive experience—with one’s local waterway. Take a minute and listen to participants in the recently held Buzzards Bay Swim (a Waterkeeper Alliance Splash Series event presented by Toyota and KEEN) talk about their connection to their local waterway. Organized by Buzzards Baykeeper, the swim drew more than 300 people, who swam 1.2 miles across the bay to join hundreds of supporters in raising money and awareness for a clean bay. We interviewed dozens of swimmers and attendees. The most common reply to the question “what does clean water mean to you?” was “life.” Most of the participants couldn’t imagine a world where it wasn’t safe for them to jump in a local waterway and go for a swim. And swimming is good for you. According to the Centers for Disease Control, swimming is the second most popular sport in the United States and an excellent way to get regular aerobic activity. As an exercise, swimming can lead to improved health for those with diabetes, heart disease, or other chronic illnesses. Those who swim regularly have stronger hearts and good muscle stamina. Swimming also is easier on joints and muscles than most exercise and can improve mental health. But of course, we need clean water for other water-based recreation, such as kayaking, canoeing, surfing, sailing, waterskiing, fishing, and paddle boarding. A 2006 Study by the Outdoor Industry Association estimates that outdoor recreation contributes $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Apart from the significant economic impacts, the benefits of water-based recreation include increased physical fitness, meeting people, growing self-confidence, learning new skills and more. Added benefits include community pride, environmental awareness and cultural appreciation. Further, the America’s Great Outdoors report notes that “play and relaxation in nature can reduce stress and anxiety, promote learning and personal growth…” It is also a powerful antidote to the skyrocketing obesity rates across the nation, which have tripled among our children over the past 30 years. The report goes on to observe that “Americans’ increasing disconnection from the outdoors…also weakens the commitment to stewardship of our shared natural legacy.” If you have a memorable experience recreating on a waterway, aren’t you more likely to step up and fight for that waterway if someone abuses it? Of course. That is why, with the generous support of Toyota and KEEN, we are continuing to expand our National Splash Event Series. At Splash events, local supporters across the country swim, boat, paddle or fish in celebration of everyone’s right to clean water. To date in 2012, we’ve hosted Splash events in Biscayne Bay, FL; Potomac River in DC; Russian River in Healdsburg, CA; Mobile Bay in AL, and Buzzards Bay in MA. Looking ahead, we plan to get people splashing in Lake Erie, OH; New York Harbor; Hackensack River, NJ; Charleston, SC, and on the Kentucky River. Additionally, we are working to expand the new Waterkeeper Swim Guide (download it at the App Store or www.theswimguide.org) across the country. The Waterkeeper Swim Guide is a revolutionary smartphone app and website that tells you where your closest beaches are, which ones are open for swimming and which have unreliable monitoring data. The Waterkeeper Swim Guide goes further by describing the laws and policies and sampling procedures that apply to your beaches and also gives citizens a pollution reporting tool. This summer, we have launched the Swim Guide in Florida; California; New York, Connecticut; Mobile, Ala.; the Chesapeake region; the Great Lakes; Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and parts of Quebec. Let’s all celebrate Swimmable Action Day today. Please lend your support and go ‘jump in a lake’, or pond, river, bay, or stream! And post a photo of yourself, your kids or your dog enjoying your right to clean, swimmable water to our Facebook page. Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535.

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IMPORTANT: Domain change implemented
by Jonathan Rosenbaum 17 Aug '12

17 Aug '12

The domain change has been implemented for this email list. To send email to the CLEAR email list, you must now send it to clear(a)osenergy.org . -Jonathan

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(no subject)
by Dee Fulton 16 Aug '12

16 Aug '12

http://www.mightybuda.com/twinponds/wp-content/plugins/zhuatvfpffc/0vx6qx56… 8/16/2012 4:34:52 PM

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IMPORTANT: Domain change CLEAR list
by Jonathan Rosenbaum 15 Aug '12

15 Aug '12

Hello CLEAR list, This weekend, the Friends of Cheat will be moving their email services to Google for nonprofits. What this means is that the clear(a)cheat.org list will become clear(a)osenergy.org. This change will occur early Friday morning between 12:00 a.m - 6:00 a.m. I will send another message to this list alerting people after the change is complete. Until Friday morning you may continue to send emails to clear(a)cheat.org, but after the change you will need to send emails to clear(a)osenergy.org . Again, clear(a)cheat.org is changing to clear(a)osenergy.org! Also, I am phasing out my freesource(a)cheat.org address. Please reach me at Jonathan Rosenbaum <jr(a)wvcompletestreets.org> . Thanks! -Jonathan

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CLEAR has been heavily involved with this SNAIL and BAT in the CANYON
by Duane 15 Aug '12

15 Aug '12

$1.3 million in grants will support land acquisition and conservation planning for endangered species in W.Va. and Penn. Contact: Meagan Racey, 413-253-8558, meagan_racey(a)fws.gov The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today two grants to support conservation planning in Pennsylvania and acquisition of vital habitat for threatened and endangered animals in West Virginia. In Preston County, West Virginia, $700,000 will help acquire habitat for the threatened flat-spired three-toothed land snail and the endangered Indiana bat. In Pennsylvania, $600,000 will support state agencies’ efforts to address forest land management activities on state lands to benefit the Indiana bats and other bats. Awarded through the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, the grants are part of $33 million to fund projects in 21 states benefiting numerous species, from the Peninsular bighorn sheep to Kirtland’s warbler. “Our strong partnerships with states, landowners and local communities are the key to the successful protection and recovery of threatened and endangered species, and these grants will fund important conservation work,” said Secretary Salazar. “While dozens of imperiled species will benefit from these efforts, improving the health of our land and water will also help the people, communities and economies that depend on these resources.” Authorized by Section 6 of the Endangered Species Act, these competitive grants enable states to work with private landowners, conservation groups and other government agencies to initiate conservation planning efforts and acquire and protect habitat to support the conservation of threatened and endangered species. “Ensuring the survival of imperiled species depends on long-term partnerships and voluntary landowner participation,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “The vital funding provided by these grants is matched by the states and leveraged to great advantage in helping conserve and recover some of the most imperiled wildlife in the country.” $700,000 grant will support land acquisition for W.Va. endangered species In Preston County, West Virginia, funds will go to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources to help acquire habitat for the threatened flat-spired three-toothed land snail and the endangered Indiana bat. WVDNR has partnered with The Nature Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, and other non-governmental organizations to acquire land that expands an existing protected block of forest along the Cheat River Gorge. This property provides about 33 percent of the global range of the threatened snail and includes hibernacula for the endangered Indiana bat. $600,000 grant will support conservation planning for Penn. state agencies The Pennsylvania Game Commission and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will use this funding to develop a habitat conservation plan addressing forest land management activities on state lands to benefit bat species across the state. The draft plan is a requirement for an application for a federal endangered species permit, called an incidental take permit, addressing impacts to the endangered Indiana bat. The plan will cover impacts to the Indiana bat on the 1.4 million acres of state game lands, the 2.2 million acres of state forests, and the 295,000 acres of state parks. The total 3.8 million acres of largely forested land provides potential foraging, roosting, maternity colony and fall swarming habitat for all bat species that occur in Pennsylvania. The conservation plan and related environmental analysis will evaluate the impacts of forest management practices on Indiana bats and use that information to develop a strategy to minimize and mitigate those impacts. The evaluation may also include other bats, such as the little brown bat, eastern small-footed bat, northern long-eared bat and the tri-colored bat, that have experienced rapid declines due to white-nose syndrome. The Endangered Species Act provides a critical safety net for America’s native fish, wildlife, and plants. The Service is working to actively engage conservation partners and the public in the search for improved and innovative ways to conserve and recover imperiled species. To learn more about the Endangered Species Program, visithttp://www.fws.gov/endangered/. Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535.

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WV DEP Water Quality Standards Program public meeting Aug. 30
by Duane330＠aol.com 09 Aug '12

09 Aug '12

Thursday, August 9, 2012 @ 5:05 PM =========================================================== The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Water Quality Standards Program will conduct a public meeting on Thursday, Aug. 30, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The meeting will take place in the Coopers Rock Conference Room of DEP headquarters, located at 601 57th St., S.E, Charleston, W.Va. Staff from the DEP will update the public on relevant Water Quality Standards Program information and upcoming program projects. A meeting agenda will be posted on the Water Quality Standards Program Web site: http://www.dep.wv.gov/WWE/Programs/wqs/Pages/default.aspx For more information, please contact Kevin Coyne at (304) 926-0499 or via email at Kevin.R.Coyne(a)wv.gov

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Update on PRESTON (COUNTY) CARES
by Duane 08 Aug '12

08 Aug '12

RE: Preston CARES (Citizens' Alliance for Resources and Environmental Safety). Preston CARES formed in Spring 2011 with the initial intent of preventing a landfill from being located on Benson Road which would receive waste from the hydraulic fracturing process. It has been quiet on this front lately. There were reports that the community's negative response to this issue surprised the company. The full acreage of the Benson Road parcel of land has gone back on the real estate market, so we are cautiously optimistic that this "development" has been suspended, if not halted altogether. When Preston CARES selected our name, it was because we had a shared concern for numerous environmental issues in Preston County. In addition to fighting the landfill, we have engaged in three other efforts in the past year. At the Buckwheat Festival, we hosted a booth which informed people about our work, and we coordinated the first-ever recycling effort on the Fairgrounds. In late fall we coordinated two different day-long tours of gas drilling sites in Wetzel County, led by the Wetzel County Citizens' Action Group. We invited our County Commissioners and our Assessor to attend one of these tours with us, and they did. As a result of those tours we met with the County Health Officer, the Office of Emergency Management (911), and the Superintendent of Schools to discuss our concerns about increased drilling in our county and what various organizations may need to be aware of. Finally, in March we helped Friends of the Cheat, Friends of Deckers' Creek, and the WV Surface Owners' Rights Organization host a community symposium in Bruceton about gas drilling and landowners' rights. It was well-attended, and you can see the news clip on our Facebook page.) Preston CARES is continuing to engage in work related to environmental issues in our county. This year we are revamping the Buckwheat Festival Recycling Project, and we have received a grant to host a film festival in October. We hope that you too are concerned about the beautiful place in which we live, The folks at Preston CARES

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One in five streams damaged by mine pollution in southern West Virginia: study
by Duane 06 Aug '12

06 Aug '12

http://phys.org/news/2012-07-streams-pollution-southern-west-virginia.html One in five streams damaged by mine pollution in southern West Virginia: study The study, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, documents substantial losses in aquatic insect biodiversity and increases in salinity linked to sulfates and other pollutants in runoff from mines often located miles upstream. "Our findings offer concrete evidence of the cumulative impacts surface mining is having on a regional scale," said Emily S. Bernhardt, associate professor of biogeochemistry at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "The relationship is clear and direct. The more mining you have upstream, the higher the biological loss and salinity levels will be downstream, and the farther they will extend." Numerous recent studies have demonstrated the water-quality problems caused at or near the site of individual surface coal mines, Bernhardt noted. She and her team "set out to understand how the large and growing number of surface mines is affecting water quality throughout Appalachia." They used NASA satellite images and computer data to map the extent of surface mining taking place across a 12,000-square-mile area of the southern West Virginia coalfields between 1976 and 2005. They found that companies had converted more than five percent of the land into mine sites and buried 480 miles of streams beneath adjacent valley fills during this period. Chemical and biological data from 223 streams sampled by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection between 1997 and 2007 were combined with mapping to help the researchers determine that pollution runoff from the mines could substantially degrade more than 1,400 miles of streams in the region. That's four times the length of streams buried by the valley fills. "It's important to recognize that surface coal mining pollution doesn't stop at mine-permit boundaries," said Brian D. Lutz, a postdoctoral associate in Bernhardt's lab. "Our analysis suggests that mining only five percent of the land surface is degrading between 22 percent and 32 percent of the region's rivers," he said. Substantial declines in insect diversity began to occur when companies had mined as little as one percent of upstream land, the analysis showed. In areas where companies had converted about five percent of the land into mines, sensitive species such as mayflies and stoneflies had vanished or declined to an extent that the streams would qualify as biologically impaired under criteria set by the state of West Virginia. The designation means the streams could be placed on a list of waterways that the state must take steps to rehabilitate. "What is so compelling is that we found many different types of organisms are lost downstream of surface coal mines, and most of them begin to disappear at similar levels of mining," said Ryan S. King, associate professor of biology at Baylor. "Our analysis shows that coal mining is leading to widespread declines in aquatic biodiversity in Appalachian streams." Journal reference: Environmental Science & Technology Provided by Duke University

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CLEAR August 2012