Anyone who has been to Weirton in the last decade has seen the shuttered steel plant, with its miles of pipelines, squarely in the middle of town. Now there is new life and hope in Weirton thanks to Form Energy’s long-duration battery facility under construction at the steel plant site. Form Energy represents the new […]
This year, Virginia donors sent 12 tons of acorns and other tree seeds to the Virginia Department of Forestry to secure Virginia’s arboreal future. It is all part of a decade-old program to grow and plant hardwood seedlings in Virginia’s forests. The program promotes a natural remedy for climate change in that trees remove carbon […]
Montana is a lot like West Virginia – rural, sparsely populated, scenic, and dominated by coal interests. There is one significant difference. In the 1970s, Montana amended its constitution to create a right on behalf of citizens to “a clean and healthful environment.” That provision was the basis of a stunning legal victory on August 14, […]
On May 11, 2023, the EPA proposed new power plant emission regulations. Power plants produce 25% of all U.S. greenhouse gasses, so the sector is an obvious place to make progress. These proposed regulations, along with the Inflation Reduction Act’s huge investment in clean power and environmental protection and the EPA’s proposed regulation of tail […]
Carbon offset agreements are private contracts between emitters of greenhouse gasses and owners of forested lands. These lands act as a natural carbon sink. West Virginia’s trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert the carbon to wood fiber while releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. When utilized in long-term wood products such as […]
PFAS is an acronym used as shorthand for several related synthetic chemical compounds. These compounds have unique properties that make them highly stable and resistant to degradation in the environment. For that reason PFAS are called “forever chemicals.” Recently we have discovered that humans have PFAS in our bodies through all sorts of ingestion, from […]
In West Virginia, environmentalists need to be realistic about how far the state can depart from fossil fuel power generation. Much of the state’s economy and many jobs are tied up in fossil fuels, both coal and natural gas. Currently, West Virginia relies on coal far more than any other state in the nation for […]
Midway through the fourth week of the 2023 legislative session, it is possible to get an overview of what seems important to legislators and their constituents. It is land use, both public and private. Several important bills affecting how we can use public lands, such as state parks and forests, as well as privately owned […]
West Virginia has had one long history of selling valuable natural resources and public lands to commercial interests. When the dust settles from these transactions and they can be viewed without the hyped rhetoric of the moment, we often conclude that the price has been ridiculously low and the damage to our natural heritage catastrophic. […]
Representatives from a dozen West Virginia environmental groups convened in Morgantown on September 24 and 25, 2022 for a discussion of the proper strategy for the movement over the next few years. The Summit was convened by the West Virginia Environmental Council. The keynote speaker was the nationally known climate advocate Mary Anne Hitt, a […]
