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Happy Trails to You
by Duane 11 Mar '13

11 Mar '13

DOMINION POST Sunday 10 March 2013: GUEST COMMENTARY Rail-trail has changed life in our town BY STEVE SELIN I appreciated the recent Goodwill City (DP-Feb. 7) article about the formation of the Monongahela River Trails Conservancy (MRTC) and the 48 mile rail-trail we enjoy here in our backyard. Twenty years later, the goodwill continues. In many ways, the trail has transformed life here in Morgantown, turning the Monongahela River into a recreational and economic asset after years of neglect and abuse. The trail has also encouraged healthy, active lifestyles as commuters, families, and lovers have rediscovered their bikes, running shoes, and rollerblades, leaving their cars behind. The trail has also emerged as a catalyst for riverfront revitalization in the downtown area, Wharf District and Star City. Not that managing a 48-mile linear park is easy! Landslides, downed trees and vandalism are a constant challenge to the unique partnership between MRTC, the city of Morgantown (BOPARC), and the Monongalia County Commission charged with maintaining and enhancing the trail. Hats off to Ella Belling, the executive director of MRTC, who has provided sustained leadership and vision for the trail. Through Belling’s prolific grant-writing efforts, MRTC and BOPARC recently were awarded more than $200,000 of federal dollars to resurface sections of the Deckers Creek Trail and stabilize part of the trail being undercut by Deckers Creek. Mark Wise, Director of BOPARC, and the city of Morgantown, also deserves much praise for their stalwart support of the trail. The BOPARC maintenance crew is constantly trimming back the encroaching brush, clearing out culverts, and replacing gates and benches damaged by vandals. Our daily enjoyment of the trail depends heavily on this maintenance crew. Eldon Callen and the Monongalia County Commission are to be commended on their long-term support of the trail. Callen’s legal advice for the trail and the commission’s annual support has been invaluable to maintain the trail at a high standard, particularly outside the city limits of Morgantown. Finally, Mayor Allen Sharp and the community of Star City have demonstrated remarkable vision in realizing the potential of the trail by revitalizing their Riverfront Park and developing the recreational potential of the old Quality Glass site. Now, you can see that it takes everyone working together to manage a first-class trail system! None of this would be possible without the hundreds of volunteers who turn out to help maintain and enhance the trail. For example, an Eagle Scout project recently added a new weather shelter near Little Fall on the Mon River Trail that now offers trail users a place to rest and shelter from storms. The future looks bright for the Mon River Trails. Perhaps the most exciting new connection will be the completion of the northern extension of the trail into Pennsylvania. Anyone who’s ridden to Apple Annies for breakfast or their famous cakes and pies knows what I’m talking about! So, let’s work together to realize the great potential of the Mon River Trails. Become a Mon River Trails Conservancy member and help the rail-trail. Learn more at our website: montrails.org. Our future success rests squarely on the goodwill of all of us. STEVE SELIN is an avid trail user and a MRTC board member. This commentary should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post

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PHOTO CONTEST ENTRY. Wonder Falls, Big Sandy River, CHEAT Watershed
by Duane 07 Mar '13

07 Mar '13

Kayak full face maneuver on Big Sandy in Preston County northern WV. Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535.

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-- We Should All Celebrate Aldo Leopold
by Duane 03 Mar '13

03 Mar '13

http://www.poncacitynews.com/Shribman2013-03-03T01-58-16 "We Should All Celebrate Aldo Leopold" David M. Shribman, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 3-3-2013 Maybe nothing much is going on right now in your hometown, but that’s not the case in Batesland, S.D. (population 108), and in the Wisconsin towns of La Crosse, Fond du Lac and New London. They’re all marking Aldo Leopold Weekend, and we should, too. Aldo Leopold Weekend — officially so designated in Wisconsin but informally marked elsewhere — comes only once a year, and it is a time for reflection and action, all in honor of one of the poets laureate of the conservation movement, a man much forgotten by the general public but much revered among those who believe, as he did, that there are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm — that you might think breakfast comes from the store and that you might believe heat comes from the furnace. Pick up your copy of his classic “A Sand County Almanac” — all libraries have one, several schools do, and those who love nature writing own at least one volume — and pause for a moment on his foreword, written precisely 65 years ago Monday. There is more wisdom in those 13 paragraphs than in a dozen 300-page works that have won the National Book Award. Pause for a moment on the second paragraph: Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher “standard of living” is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. Leopold’s book is a meditation on wild things and on the cost of civilization. Long before the word “ecology” moved from the natural-history and zoology faculty in the late 19th century to the front pages of newspapers in the late 1960s, this U.S. Forest Service supervisor, University of Wisconsin professor of game management and long-selling author (2 million copies in print) preached the precepts and values of this discipline, which he viewed in moral as much as in scientific terms: That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics … Our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. Can it be a coincidence that his masterwork was completed in the same year (1948) as “Northern Farm,” Henry Beston’s chronicle of a year in Maine, written from Chimney Farm in Nobleboro, where he lived with his wife, the equally sagacious Elizabeth Coatsworth, a Buffalo girl who won the Newbery Medal in 1931 for “The Cat Who Went to Heaven” but is best remembered in our house for her musings about rural New England? Henry Beston may be better known for “The Outermost House,” written in 1928 from Cape Cod, but I have always been drawn to “Northern Farm,” which he concludes by observing that “(w)hat has come over our age is an alienation from Nature unexampled in human history. It has cost us our sense of reality and all but cost us our humanity.” That is the Leopold insight as well. Leopold and Rachel Carson (who once said Beston was the only writer who influenced her) are almost always cited as the founding father and mother of the modern environmental movement. Open Beston’s book at random and you’ll encounter reflections like this, on page 24 of my well-loved paperback edition, now 39 years old: If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make everything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture. Like Beston, Leopold was a great observer. He contemplated field sparrows, wrens, even the beautifully named prothonotary warbler, the latter very much at home in a hole carved by a woodpecker. He made friends with the wahoo, red dogwood, hazel and bittersweet, dismissed by the less discerning as mere brush. He noticed how the wild blackberries glowed along boggy streams like red lanterns. He found that the winds of November were in a hurry. In all, the farm woodlands provided him with what he called “a liberal education,” for he concluded that “(t)his crop of wisdom never fails.” Here’s some of that wisdom, beautifully captured in a new edition published this month by the Library of America: If you are thriftily inclined, you will find pines congenial company, for, unlike the hand-to-mouth hardwoods, they never pay current bills out of current earnings; they live solely on their savings of the year before. In this month of March the “small-talk and neighborhood gossip among pines” told Leopold that a well-fed deer is too lazy to reach up beyond 4 feet for his feast of branches but a really famished one will reach as high as 8 feet. “Thus,” he wrote, “I learn the gastronomic status of the deer without seeing them, and I learn, without visiting his field, whether my neighbor has hauled in his cornshocks.” (Lest you think this sort of wisdom, rare in any age, has no equal in our time, let me recommend “Reading the Forested Landscape” by Tom Wessels, perhaps the best nature book of our century.) Some 65 years later, Leopold tells us that a “March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.” The other day I was in the country and looked skyward and saw snow-laden clouds at war with the sun. The snow won. All was right with the world, softened by the white. Leopold, who prided himself on knowing how a mountain thinks, saw man as merely the newest animal on the prairie he came to love, intervening by depriving the land of its onetime ally, fire. He reminds us that the great John Muir felt the same thing. “Had there been no fires,” wrote Muir, “these fine prairies, so marked a feature of the country, would have been covered by the heaviest forest.” This led Leopold to tell us that he who owns a bur oak, so prominent in southern Wisconsin, “owns a historical library, and a reserved seat in the theater of evolution.” The amazing thing is that he saved a seat for us in that theater. Sit back and watch the action. It’s Aldo Leopold Weekend. David M. Shribman is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

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SHEEPSKIN TRAIL COMMUNITY KICK-OFF -- March 7th
by Duane 22 Feb '13

22 Feb '13

Please join in the Sheepskin Trail Community Kick-Off in Point Marion, PA on March 7th at 4:30PM. The more the merrier! The Sheepskin Trail, which will connect Point Marion to Morgantown and eventually to the Great Allegheny Passage, is one step closer. For many years trail advocates and organizations in both WV and PA have been working to move rail-trail boundaries past the WV State Line, where the Mon River Trail currently ends. Please join us and our friends in Point Marion, PA for a community gathering to hear more about this effort and to celebrate some good news. 4:30PM Gather for walking tour- Penn and Railroad Street 5-6PM Refreshments and Speakers-Jordan Building- corner of Main and Penn Street 6PM Enjoy dinner at a local restaurant Please RSVP 724.437.9877 I hope to see you there! Spread the word, Ella Directions from Morgantown Follow US 119 North approximately 10 miles After you enter Point Marion 119N will curve to the left One block down on left is parking lot across from United Bank and adjacent to post office. Ella Belling Executive Director Mon River Trails Conservancy P.O. Box 282 Morgantown, WV 26507 www.montrails.org 304-692-6782

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Death by Chocolate.pdf
by Duane 08 Feb '13

08 Feb '13

http://www.dep.wv.gov/pio/Documents/Settlements%20and%20Orders/Death%20by%2… Citation and Fine for sediment pollution to Whites Run and Cheat Lake. Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535.

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<CLEAR> New Bridge, New Access Point on Cheat Lake
by Duane330＠aol.com 10 Dec '12

10 Dec '12

NOTICE: During the next few weeks, please examine the new Bridge Over Cheat Lake, and on the East Upstream side please notice a gap in the Guard Rail for pulling off into a small area freshly graveled and decorated with large stone pieces from the old bridge piers. This new area is intended for use of car top carry down boats, not for swimming. We owe a big thank you to Frank Jernejcic, Fish Biologist, WV-DNR and Brayman Construction for the work done thus far on this pull-off, parking, site seeing, car-top boat access location. ASSIGNMENTS: 1. What would you name the new bridge? I hope that the new name is The Ice's Ferry Bridge. That was the name for the old bridge, and the location was the site of the ferry crossing in the earliest days for pioneers when the Ice family settled in that vicinity and gave birth to the first non native child west of these mountains. The Ice Family monument has been preserved and is now located on the East Downstream side of the new bridge, another reason that the Ice family name would be right for the new bridge. What would you name the new bridge? 2. Stop by the East Upstream access location and look around. We might work with the WV Division of Natural Resources to improve this carry-down boat access location over the coming months and years. What ideas would you have. In some locations, some fill dirt and grass might be feasible. Safety features may be needed along the access ramp, which is rather steep. Your ideas would be appreciated. NOTE: If you are walking on or near the new bridge and decide to cross to the other side, you will be in danger of the automobile traffic because cars and trucks are going much faster on this new bridge than was the case with the old one and no crossing points have been allowed for. Safety first, please take great care.

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Stop the noise and air pollution at MFIP!
by Jonathan Rosenbaum 26 Nov '12

26 Nov '12

Remember Northeastern Natural Energy at the Morgantown Industrial Park and the public outcry? Same County (Cheat Lake Area) Same type of location: Industrial Park Same type of Industry Health, Safety and Welfare of citizens threatened Visit http://stopthenoise.lwvwv.org for a better reading experience and to view the videos documenting the noise pollution. Stop the Noise! <http://www.lwvwv.org/2012/11/20/stop-the-noise/> <http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/P1010334.jpg><http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/P1010336.jpg> Stop the noise! <http://stopthenoise.lwvwv.org/> Sounds simple, doesn't it? But it is not. At the Natural Resources committee meeting ofLWV of Morgantown-Monongalia <http://www.lwvwv.org/category/league-of-women-votes-of-wv/morgantown/>on November 19th, 2012, the brutal reality of what happens when citizens have no recourse when their welfare is threatened became painfully apparent to us all in a loud way. In the videos below Cassandra Harvey records the almost constant 24/7 noise her family had to experience in the vicinity of the Mon Fayette Industrial Park (MFIP). "Had to" because after several month of grating, constant, maddening, unrelenting, drive a person insane noise, she and her family had to move. Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) Manager Edward Limas ofInspection Oilfield Services (IOS) <http://www.iospci.com/> states in a noise survey conducted on 8/27/2012 that the noise level ranged from 86.3-105.8 dB. According to the OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Standards concerning Occupational noise exposure <http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_i…> ("Paragraphs (c) through (n) <http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/oilgaswelldrilling/index.html#standards>of this section shall not apply to employers engaged in oil and gas well drilling and servicing operations."), sound protection is required for workers spending over 2 hours at the 100 dB range. Table G-16 below provides a detailed dB/hr explanation. TABLE G-16 - PERMISSIBLE NOISE EXPOSURES (1) ______________________________________________________________ | Duration per day, hours | Sound level dBA slow response ____________________________|_________________________________ | 8...........................| 90 6...........................| 92 4...........................| 95 3...........................| 97 2...........................| 100 1 1/2 ......................| 102 1...........................| 105 1/2 ........................| 110 1/4 or less................| 115 ____________________________|________________________________ This video speaks for itself. IOS workers are not protected from potential injury from loud sound! If they were working for short periods of time, perhaps, but the residents beside the Industrial Park have been observing the same workers over an extended time period. The residents have been experiencing air pollution from the rust and chemicals being removed from the pipes. Sometimes there is a chemical odor in the air, and they have observed a film from the particulates depositing on surfaces. Ruth Stone explained how the chemistry of her swimming pool water has been altered. Photos were shown of a bird bath filled with a rust color substance. Observe in the video above how workers are not wearing any respiratory protection either! Another known violation. I asked Bill Myers, one of over 10 residents who attended the meeting, whether the pipes are cleaned on location at the drilling site, or whether they come in dirty with drilling mud. Although he was not completely sure whether they are being delivered with toxic mud, he said, they are cleaned at the Industrial Park, and the dirty water, drains into a tributary that empties into Cheat Lake. It would be interesting to find out the results from a chemistry test of the effluents being dumped from the site. IOS is only 1 of several companies with a lease at the Park. According to MFIP leasing specs, there are nowmore than 20 tenants <http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/16835952/1100-Heavy-Haul-Road-Morgantown-WV/>mainly focused on the oil and gas industry. <http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Mon-Fayette-Industrial-Park…> Resident's home in relation to the Industrial Park site. View Larger Map <http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=Clark+Road,+M…> When the Industrial Park was being constructed beside the residents homes, a 15 foot high vertical drop was built right along their property lines. No attempt was made by the operators to put a protective fence along this wall to protect residents, in particular, their children. Both of Cassandra's children were adversely affected by the noise in the nighttime and suffered from the inability to sleep. Cassandra observed behavioral changes in both children resulting from the extreme fatigue. There were specific instances when her 6 year old was screaming and crying due to an incredibly high-pitched squeal. Both she and her husband, Wade, a physician, have developed tinnitus. The video below provides good insight into why they had to move. But, many of the residents cannot move from the location. Some have been there for 40+ years. This is the place they have loved and enjoyed, but now their faces bare deep frowns. I could sense the heaviness and despair in the air. These folk do not oppose good jobs, and IOS promised them they would be a good neighbor. But that has not happened, instead it has become a waking nightmare that they cannot fall asleep from. <http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-0829-15.33-4.jpg> Burning behind the IOS facility. There are many other violations the residents have been observing at the Industrial Park. One repeated violation involves burning without a permit on an industrial site which is illegal in West Virginia. <http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/blasting11.jpg><http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/blasting111.jpg><http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/blasting1111.jpg> Blasting is being performed by Mountaineer Drilling & Blasting from Clarksburg. Some resident's homes have sustained structural damage. The response from the Industrial Park's insurer, Chartis (Mountaineer Drilling sent Smith Adjusting) is that the blasting has not been strong enough to cause damage. The residents were made aware that seismographs were used after they complained; however, they have never been granted access to the data collected. What is worst is that no offer for pre-appraisals were initially offered, and there was never a notice about the blasting being performed. Sirens were occasionally used, but not according to blasting regulations or with any regularity. Complete violations. Paul Panson, incorporator and President (owner) of LPG Land & Development Corp., the corporation operating the Mon Fayette Industrial Park, allowed more blasting to occur on November 8 and 12 despite complaints from the residents. Bonnie Hughes (the resident who originally contacted me on this website) says that an unknown company was performing blasting on those two dates, and speculates that LPG Land & Development may have been performing the work themselves without an outside contractors help. Why hasn't anything been done? Apparently, the regulations that pertain to permanent sites do not apply to the transient Oil & Gas industry's temporary sites. But temporary is a relative term, it could be an indefinite amount of years, as long as drilling continues up the road in Pennsylvania, the Industrial Park is conveniently located right near the end of the Mon-Fayette expressway. As for the noise, the worst complaint of all, Bonnie explains it in this way, "The buck keeps getting passed around from EPA to DEP to County Commission back to EPA". While deeply concerned, the Monongalia County Health Department <http://www.monchd.org/>andHUD <http://hud.gov/>have not been able to help. <http://www.lwvwv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mckinley-noise.jpg> WV Congressman David McKinley's response On October 19, 2012, WV Congressman David McKinley responded to Bonnie's complaint regarding the excessive noise level at the MFIP. He explains, "TheNoise Control Act of 1972 <http://www.epa.gov/air/noise/noise_control_act_of_1972.pdf>andQuiet Communities Act of 1978 <http://www.epa.gov/air/noise.html>were not rescinded, and remain in effect today." However, McKinley says, "In 1981, the Administration concluded that noise issues were best handled at the state or local governmental level." McKinley copied this information in his letter verbatim from EPA's website <http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/history/topics/noise/index.html>. Neither does he believe that current Federal regulations enforced by the EPA or a designated agency would apply to her complaint. Then he offers to forward a very detailed written statement of her concerns to the EPA to determine if help is available, and ask the County Commission, and WV DEP to contact her personally. Bonnie sent this statement to McKinley on October 22, 2012, and has not heard back. But, the residents have already been through this circuit with the EPA, DEP and County Commission over and over again. He says, "I am hopeful these officials will be successful in convincing the drilling company to commit to being a "good neighbor" and offer a suitable resolution which will be aimed at reducing the noise levels associated with their drilling activities." What the residents desperately want now is relief. They cannot wait for County Planning to implement a sound ordinance, or the state legislature to implement a law that the County Commission would have to obey. They hope that theNoise Control Act of 1972 <http://www.epa.gov/air/noise/noise_control_act_of_1972.pdf>will come to their rescue and will preempt, or perhaps their new neighbor will pay close attention to the part in the Constitution that promotes the general Welfare of all her people. One more video to whet your whistle. In this video, a fire whistle competes with the background sound. Yes, sirens are still used in our region in this modern age of pagers, radios and telephones!

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: "How's My Waterway" Webcast
by Duane 26 Nov '12

26 Nov '12

> From: "Thompson, Jami" <JThompson(a)wvca.us> > Date: November 26, 2012 12:25:48 PM EST > Subject: "How's My Waterway" Webcast > > > Many of you have probably already seen the new EPA "How's my Waterway" tool, where you can search local water bodies and learn about their water quality. This Wednesday there is a free webcast to learn more about this app, and others related to water quality. I thought y'all may be interested! Here is the link to register http://water.epa.gov/learn/training/wacademy/webcasts_index.cfm You can also search and download past webcasts, and subscribe to the podcast! > > I found out about this webcast because I'm subscribe to the EPA's Watershed News. It's a monthly electronic newsletter with all kinds of great watershed-related news! I would highly suggest subscribing. Here's a link to the November newsletter, and instructions on how to subscribe can be found at the very bottom http://water.epa.gov/type/watersheds/1112.cfm > > > dgn

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National Water Quality Monitoring Council online newsletter
by Duane 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

To our Water Monitoring Colleagues around the Nation: As Co-Chairs of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (or "Council"), we are pleased to release the sixth edition of our online newsletter National Water Monitoring News :http://acwi.gov/monitoring/newsletter/national-monitoring-news_fall2012.pdf This newsletter provides a forum of communication among water practitioners across the Nation. In support of the national Council’s mission, this newsletter is geared to foster partnerships and collaboration; advance water science; improve monitoring strategies; and enhance data integration, comparability, and reporting. This edition highlights many events, activities, and new products and we hope the information is useful for your water needs. Among the topics included: Highlights from the Council’s 8th National Monitoring Conference (April 30 – May 4, 2012, Portland, OR) New Council Resource – Water Quality Data Portal Tools and Technology Electronic field forms for the 2012 National Lakes Assessment New How's My Waterway? mobile website Updates on monitoring including: U.S. Geological Survey’s Cooperative Water Program U.S. EPA’s National Aquatic Resource Surveys U.S. Forest Service’s Inventory, Monitoring, and Assessment Program Chesapeake Bay Program monitoring of 2011 storm effects Wildfire effects on source water quality Spotlight on the State monitoring programs from California, Vermont and Florida Volunteers monitoring and the coastal Phytoplankton Monitoring Network Updates on National Monitoring Networks including: National Ground Water Monitoring Network Albemarle Sound’s study as part of the National Monitoring Network for U.S. Coastal Waters and Their Tributaries Lake Michigan water quality near Chicago Many thanks to the editorial board: Cathy Tate, Dan Sullivan, Wendy Norton, Alice Mayio, and John Hummer; Kim Martz for the layout, and to all contributors nationwide. On behalf of the entire Council, we hope you enjoy this newsletter and we encourage your feedback and input in future editions! Respectfully yours, Mike Yurewicz, USGS Co-Chair and Susan Holdsworth, EPA Co-Chair To learn more about the National Water Quality Monitoring Council please visit:http://acwi.gov/monitoring/

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New Cheat Lake Bridge Schedule
by Duane 15 Nov '12

15 Nov '12

Jason Nelson of the WV division of highways said today on WAJR radio that the work on the new bridge is behind schedule. He said two to three more weeks of work remains, depending upon the weather. The main bridge deck is now finished, in concrete. But, more work remains with the asphalt on the approach ramps. Other finishing work also remains to be done. So, we cannot expect the new bridge to open until at least December 7th. He also said that there is some subsidence on one of the ramps, over Bowers Lane, in the interchange of the Mon Valley Expressway. Duane Nichols, Cell- 304-216-5535.

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