CLEAR January 2020

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e-WV | Forks of Cheat
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 24 Jan '20

24 Jan '20

https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2031 Forks of Cheat The area of West Virginia known as the Forks of Cheat lies between the Monongahela and Cheat rivers, including Stewartstown and the surrounding area in the northeast corner of Monongalia County and neighboring Pennsylvania. The name is confusing, in that it refers to the river fork created where the Cheat joins the Monongahela, rather than the place where the Cheat River itself forks into its tributaries. That is many miles upstream, at Parsons. The Forks of Cheat has long been used as a regional name. An 1883 Monongalia County history says that the early settlers called all of the county’s Union District west of Cheat River the Forks of Cheat. One of the earliest settlers was William Stewart, for whom Stewartstown was named. Irish-born, he came to the area in 1770. The Forks-of-Cheat Baptist Church has had four buildings on the same site and is believed to have the longest continuous history of any church in West Virginia. The church was established in 1775. The Forks area was traversed by a major Indian trail, and early white settlers endured the frequent hazard of Indian raids. Settler John Evans, in a letter of April 18, 1778, reported recent attacks in which Indians had killed and captured ten people ‘‘above the mouth of the Cheat River,’’ stolen horses, and burned a fort. A grandmother and three granddaughters were among those carried away. Stories such as this one were common. Agriculture was the economic mainstay of the forks in the 19th century. The area also participated in the early iron industry of the region. Coal mining and natural gas were important in the 20th century. The construction of the Cheat Lake dam and hydroelectric station provided work in the 1920s, and recreational activities associated with the lake help shape the character of the area today. U.S. 119 bisects Forks of Cheat on its way from Morgantown to Point Marion, Pennsylvania. The Mason-Dixon Line crosses the Forks of Cheat, separating West Virginia from Pennsylvania. This Article was written by Hallie Chillag Dunlap Last Revised on July 26, 2012 Cite This Article Dunlap, Hallie Chillag "Forks of Cheat." e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 26 July 2012. Web. 24 January 2020.

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All parties should study report on PILOT deals
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 18 Jan '20

18 Jan '20

Letter to Editor: All parties should study report on PILOT deals >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Letter to the Editor, Morgantown Dominion Post, Submitted January 16, 2020 Mon County is Losing Millions in Tax Revenue, Exposed to Power Plant Emissions An in-depth look at the PILOT agreement for the Longview Power plant that is now operating has been performed by Ted Boettner, Director of the WV Center on Budget & Policy. This was published to their web-site on October 15, 2019. PILOT is the “payment in lieu of taxes” agreement approved by the Monongalia County Commission back in 2003. According to the analysis, the tax abatement (taxes not collected) is estimated at $457 million over 30 years. The proposed new Longview II power plant tax abatement that might be approved by the Monongalia County Commission, would forgive $217 million over 30 years. Thus, the total tax abatement for Longview according to Boettner is $674 million. Everyone should read and study the document on the web-site of the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy as it covers PILOT agreements in general. It is about 10 pages long. And, this document contains eight (8) guidelines or “best practices” that can help increase transparency, reduce waste, and ensure a more democratic process in the abatement process. The Monongalia County Sheriff, the School Board and the County Commission should study and use the facts and information in the above referenced document if approving another PILOT agreement, in the best interest of the public health and welfare. This is the reference: “PILOT Agreements Cost State Millions in Tax Revenue: An In-Depth Look at Longview Power Plant,” Ted Boettner, October 15, 2019. The source is: https://wvpolicy.org/pilot-agreements-cost-state-millions-in-tax-revenue-an… The Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition is concerned about putting another large power plant where so many will be affected, the Ft. Martin community, Maidsville, Star City, Stewartstown, Cheat Lake area, Pt. Marion, etc. Already we have over 300 diesel trucks per day on the Ft. Martin hill. The location of University High School and all the health care facilities of Mon General Hospital and the WVU Hospital system are downwind and subject to concerns especially during adverse weather conditions as thermal inversions in the atmosphere. My information is that the proposed new Longview II power plant will have emissions of over 10 tons per year of “hazardous air pollutants” (HAPs), 200 tons per year of fine particulate matter (PM), 500 tons per year of “volatile organic compounds” (VOCs), and 4 million tons per year of greenhouse gases, based upon data from the WV Department of Environmental Protection. All this would add to the even greater emissions from the existing Longview I and Ft. Martin coal fired power plants. We don’t want over 35 thousand residents and 35 thousand students to be exposed to these conditions. Duane G. Nichols, Stewartstown, WV 26508 > A truncated or edited version appears today in the Morgantown Dominion Post, as letters are limited to 300 words. > SEE ATTACHMENT > >

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Opinion | How to Stop Freaking Out and Tackle Climate Change - The New York Times
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 17 Jan '20

17 Jan '20

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/sunday/how-to-help-climate-chang…

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THE PEOPLES PHARMACY N.P.R. National Public Radio
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 11 Jan '20

11 Jan '20

DECEMBER 5, 2019 — Show 1191: What Are Your Favorite Home Remedies? For centuries, people have been using home remedies as their first treatment for common ailments. With easy access to over-the-counter drugs, though, people have turned away from home remedies in the last several decades. There are still plenty of inexpensive options that work well, however. Which are your favorite home remedies? Apple Cider Vinegar: One ever-popular remedy, apple cider vinegar, starred in a mid-20th century book, Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health. In it, Dr. Jarvis promoted the use of apple cider vinegar and honey. Although he was perhaps the most enthusiastic proponent of this remedy, he learned about it from his patients. They, in turn, had learned about it from their parents and grandparents. The use of apple cider vinegar as a home treatment for a range of ills can be traced back to colonial times in New England. Although most doctors have not embraced vinegar of any sort, many people still maintain that it can be helpful. We talk with Rosemary Gladstar, an herbalist and author of Fire Cider!: 101 Zesty Recipes for Health-Boosting Remedies Made with Apple Cider Vinegar. In it, she describes multiple uses of apple cider vinegar, especially in combination with hot peppers (fire cider). These strong flavors may not be for everyone, but some people swear by fire cider. How do they use it? What Are Your Favorite Home Remedies? We'd like to hear about your favorite home remedies, whether you are using an herbal tea to soothe indigestion or have found a creative use for a drugstore product. (Lots of people tell us they put Vicks VapoRub on the soles of their feet to calm a nighttime cough. We first heard about this unorthodox use from a listener more than a decade ago.) Call In Your Questions and Stories: After you listen to Rosemary Gladstar, we invite you to tell us about your favorite home remedies. Joe and Terry will respond. Our lines are open for your questions and comments this week. Call 888-472-3366 between 7 and 8 am EDT on Saturday, December 7, 2019. You can also reach us by email: radio(a)peoplespharmacy.com. This Week's Guest: Rosemary Gladstar is a star figure in the field of modern herbalism, internationally renowned for her technical knowledge and stewardship in the global herbalist community. She has been learning, teaching and writing about herbs for over 40 years and is the author of eleven books. Her work includes Herbs for Common Ailments, Medicinal Herbs, a Beginners Guide, Herbal Healing for Women, Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health, and The Science and Art of Herbalism, an extensive in depth home study course. She is the Founding President of United Plant Savers, former director of The New England Women's Herbal Conference and founder and past director of the International Herb Symposium. Her newest book is Fire Cider!: 101 Zesty Recipes for Health-Boosting Remedies Made with Apple Cider Vinegar The photograph of Rosemary Gladstar is by Jason Houston. Listen to the Podcast: The podcast of this program will be available the Monday after the broadcast date. The show can be streamed online from this site and podcasts can be downloaded for free. CDs may be purchased at any time after broadcast for $9.99. Buy the CD Download the mp3. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444414/the-people-s-pharmacy-radio-program LISTEN· 56:33 PLAYLIST

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Saving the Environment, Saving the Earth ....
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 09 Jan '20

09 Jan '20

CLIMATE-BLOW-RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM-9JanY2K20 NEW YORK TIMES JANUARY 9, 2020 My Journey to Radical Environmentalism It’s never too late to take action aimed at protecting our planet. By Charles M. Blow, NYT, Opinion Columnist, Jan. 8, 2020 • I can’t quite remember the moment when I became radicalized about protecting the environment and the planet, but it happened last year. That’s late in life, I know. At 49 years old, it is very possible and even likely that I have more years behind me than in front of me, but that is when it happened. Before that, I didn’t do more than was required by law. I have lived in New York City since 1994. Mandatory recycling was phased in citywide by 1997. So, I recycled what was required. Five years ago, when my last two children went away to college, I got rid of my car, but not for environmental reasons. I just didn’t need it anymore, and it was expensive to maintain. But something happened to me last year. Maybe it was Greta Thunberg’s advocacy, and hearing her impassioned United Nations speech in which she blasted world leaders, saying: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying; entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” Maybe it was watching Bill Nye the Science Guy set a globe ablaze during an F-word-laced tirade in which he yelled in exasperation for people to grow up because the planet is on fire. Maybe it was the unending drumbeat of warning from scientists that climate change is accelerating at a rate faster than they expected and we are nearing a point of no return. Maybe it was the fact that my last two kids graduated from college last year, and for the first time I saw all my children as independent adults going out into the world, and I wanted to become a better custodian of the planet for their sakes. The thing that I remember most, though, was neither ofthese specifically, although they may well have been background factors. The fact that stuck with me came from Googling how long it takes for plastic bags to decompose. The answer is that we don’t know. Some estimate it could take 500 years, others say a thousand. There is an easy-to-understand obsceneness for me in using a bag for 10 minutes, from a store to my home, and the possibility that it will remain on the planet for a thousand years. I immediately bought reusable shopping bags, stopped buying plastic storage bags, bought biodegradable garbage bags, and found places that would recycle the few plastic bags I had. But the whole thing made me think about how heavy my carbon footprint and environmental impact are now, and how different that was from the way I grew up. As a child, my family had a tiny environmental impact, in part because we were poor. Most of our food came from our own property: no shipment emission, no packaging, no pesticides. The yard was full of fruit and nut trees: a few pecan trees, a few crab apple trees, a fig tree, a peach tree and blackberries growing near the fence line. My mother planted two truck patch gardens where we grew corn, leafy greens, potatoes, tomatoes, okra and melons. We raised our own food animals for protein, each year buying a couple of hogs and a cow. We had almost no food waste. We ate most of what my mother made, and as a home economics teacher, she was a genius at turning leftovers into new meals. What could not be eaten was separated into two groups: What the dogs could safely eat and what would go to slop the hogs. What we did buy from stores was not so heavily packaged as much food is today. We bought eggs and sweet potatoes mostly wholesale, in cases or crates. On the few occasions that we bought eggs in plastic foam containers, my mother saved them, bound them together with yarn, and made trash cans out of them. Furthermore, if something she bought came in a plastic container, it became storage, a form of poor people’s Tupperware. Poor people were the original recyclers before recycling was the norm. Waste was for the wealthy. For that reason we had little trash. When I thought about that in the context of the outrageous amount of trash my family and I now produce, I felt ashamed. So I decided to not only reduce my trash production, but also to dramatically reduce my first use of even things that can be recycled. Not only does the production of those products in the first instance consume energy, recycling them also uses energy. Beyond that, you cannot be assured that what you put on the curb to be recycled actually will be. As The New York Times reported in May 2018: “In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in dozens of American cities and towns — including several in Oregon — have gone to landfills.” I have tried to take more steps to reduce my carbon footprint. I ride mass transportation more often. I stopped consuming red meat. (The carbon footprint for beef and pork are obscene.) I buy more fruit and vegetables at the local farmers’ market. I compost. I’ve changed all lighting in my house to LEDs and lowered my thermostat. One thing that I haven’t figured out how to avoid is air travel, mostly because I’m active on the speaking circuit. But I am looking into buying carbon offsets for that travel. None of this is to position myself as a perfect example of an environmentalist, but rather to demonstrate to people like me who read this column that it is never too late to start trying, that every small effort matters, and that you can do it in communities of late-reformers like me. I know there are probably many more things I can do to help the environment, (I hope you all will share some in the comments of this column for all to see), and I will continue my research to find more of them. It seems to me that environmentalism involves not only the changes we personally make, but also proselytizing, getting more people to join us. My journey to radical environmentalism is not complete. To the contrary, it’s just beginning. I think that the only way to prevent the radical alteration of our planet is to commit to a radical alteration of our own behavior. Charles Blow joined The Times in 1994 and became an Opinion columnist in 2008. He is also a television commentator and writes often about politics, social justice and vulnerable communities. @CharlesMBlow • Facebook URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/opinion/radical-environmentalism.html

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The Forks of the Cheat River....... flooding does happen!
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 05 Jan '20

05 Jan '20

HERE IS THE CLASSICAL DESCRIPTION ..... The five forks of the Cheat (Blackwater River, Shavers, Dry, Glady, and Laurel Forks) are all well-known coldwater fisheries that support healthy fish populations. These major headwater tributaries join to form the Cheat River near Parsons, West Virginia. HERE IS THE MODERN DESCRIPTION ....... The Black Fork flows for its entire length of four miles in Tucker County. It is formed at the town of Hendricks by the confluence of the Dry Fork and the Blackwater River, and flows generally northwestwardly through Hambleton to Parsons, where it joins the Shavers Fork to form the Cheat River. ################################################## http://wvmetronews.com/2019/07/01/preston-county-flash-flooding-brought-rap… Preston County: Flash flooding brought rapid rise of Cheat River (July 1, 2019) The southern part of Preston County reported the most flooding. KINGWOOD, W.Va. — The rate at which the Cheat River rose Sunday following Saturday night flash flooding is being compared to the tragic flood of 1985. “It was pretty low initially in the morning and it rose very rapidly. Actually it rose more rapidly than we’ve ever seen it, other than the ’85 flood,” Preston County Office of Emergency Services Assistant Director Justin Wolfe said. There were 21 swift-water rescues Sunday along the Cheat, including 19 people in one campground, Wolfe said. “They were all in one spot where they were isolated off with the Cheat River on one side and other small stream that flows around,” he said. Two other people were rescued by a Maryland State Police helicopter from an island in the Cheat. “It was too dangerous for the swift-water teams with fast current and debris that was coming down the river so we had to contact them to airlift two,” Wolfe said. Preston is one of five counties that are under a state of emergency from Gov. Jim Justice. The heavy rain began at about 10 p.m. Saturday. As much as five inches fell in some locations over a very short period of time. Preston County Commissioner Samantha Stone said there’s some significant road damage. “Some roads, our major roads, like (U.S. Route) 50 sheets of asphalt just lifted off the road,” Stone said. “The water was coming down off the hills and mountains whichever way it could find and all of the debris it brought with it really damages a lot of the roadways.” Most of the significant flooding was in southern Preston County.

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Lake Lynn JAM Slides_12-12-2019.pdf
by Duane Nichols via CLEAR 02 Jan '20

02 Jan '20

Attached please find the presentation from the Cheat Lake relicensing meeting of December 12th. NOTE on Slide 7, the next date for input is February 10th. NOTE ...... TRADITIONAL LICENSING PROCESS (TLP) OVERVIEW • Applicant files NOI, PAD, request to use TLP, and newspaper notice (8/29/2019) • FERC approves use of TLP (10/17/2019) • Applicant conducts joint agency/public meeting and site visit (12/12/2019) • Resource agencies, tribes, and stakeholders provide written comments and recommend resource studies (2/10/20)

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CLEAR January 2020