CHEAT CANYON PRESERVED!
Some 3,836 acres of the iconic Cheat River Canyon have been purchased by The Conservation Fund and The Nature Conservancy for preservation, and ultimately, public use and enjoyment. Their action will protect a seven-mile stretch of the Cheat River, and most of the Canyon not already included in Cooper’s Rock State Forest and Snake Hill Wildlife Management Area. Finally, after 20 years and a few unsuccessful attempts, the land will now be protected forever!
The Canyon has been a target for conservation since 1976. The Nature Conservancy has identified the Cheat River as one of the most ecologically intact rivers in the Central Appalachians. There are no dams in the Cheat River main stem and none of the watershed’s major tributaries are dammed. The river is connected to a well-forested floodplain, and the vast majority of the watershed’s headwaters are part of the Monongahela National Forest complex. Improvements in water quality over the past 20 years have resulted in a recovered fishery and fish can once again be found throughout the entire Cheat Canyon.
Hopefully, this is a step towards reviving interest in the Canyon’s world-class whitewater, and re-opening the section of the Allegheny Trail that runs through the Canyon. The Allegheny Trail is 330 mile north-south trail through WV, which connects to the Appalachian Trail at the VA-WV border.
When complete, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources will manage all 3,800 acres as a component of its Wildlife Management Area system and as a complement to the complex of public recreation lands on the lower Cheat River.
This accomplishment is a landmark event for all parties involved over the last two decades. Important staff at The Conservation Fund and The Nature Conservancy include Rodney Bartgis and Beth Wheatley.
Press on this historic sale
The Charleston Gazette article includes a really neat flyover of the property.
NOTE: It is time to acknowledge the longstanding work of Ken Hotopp, conservation biologist, for his studies and advocacy to protect the Cheat Canyon and its natural habitat in the 1990’s. And, of great importance was the work of Charlie Wallbridge and many others in 2002 to promote public access and public ownership in the Cheat Canyon.
The Cheat Lake Environment & Recreation Association (CLEAR) has been one of the leaders over the past 10 or more years to preserve the Cheat snail and Indiana bat in the Cheat Canyon, including the legal action filed on April 6, 2005 shown below. And, CLEAR has been an active participant in efforts to bring this Canyon into the public domain, including a routing there for the Allegheny Trail.
PROTECTING NATURAL HABITAT: CLEAR et al. v. Allegheny Wood Products, Inc.
| Case Number: | 1:2005cv00061, April 6, 2005 |
| Court: | U.S. Northern WV District Court |
| Presiding Judge: | Frederick P. Stamp |
The Cheat Lake Environment and Recreation Association, the Friends of Blackwater, and the Sierra Club of WV brought suit against Allegheny Wood Products, a timber company, concerning the company’s logging activities in Cheat River Canyon, West Virginia, which harm the endangered Indiana bat and the threatened flat-spired three toothed-land snail — an extremely rare species known to occur in the Cheat River Canyon — in violation of Section 9 of the Endangered Species Act. The parties entered into a settlement agreement in February 2007, under which AWP agreed to set aside permanent reserve areas as habitat for the snail; to engage in a collaborative scientific process to identify and protect additional snail habitat; and to adopt measures for minimizing impacts on the Indiana bat.