New Energy Jobs Await West Virginia – If We Just Elect the Right Legislators

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 […]

Vote Climate Action
WV

Conservation West Virginia, a nonpartisan environmental guardian, announces a campaign to engage and empower younger voters who care about West Virginia’s climate! Vote to Keep Our Mountains Cool Our goal is to elect conservation leaders and send a message to the politicians who are ignoring the effects of climate change. We need volunteers to spread […]

EPA’s New Power Plant Emission Regulations

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 at Risk

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 […]

Where Are We On PFAS Protection in West Virginia?

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 […]

No Escape from Fossil Fuels: SB 188 Facilitates Natural Gas Power Plants

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 […]

Land Use: Where the Action is at the 2023 Legislature

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 Always Been for Sale. Why Should Now be Different?

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. […]

Join the “Go North” Corridor H Coalition

The Division of Highway’s proposed final route for the Corridor H Highway is the so-called “Canyon Route” between Parsons and Davis which would construct a massive concrete overpass with numerous exit ramps between the historic towns of Davis and Thomas. It would cross over the North Fork of the Blackwater Canyon, be visible from Pendleton […]

2022 Candidate Endorsements

Conservation West Virginia is pleased to announce the candidates we endorse for the West Virginia House of Delegates and Senate in November’s statewide election. We focused on nineteen races throughout the Eastern third of the state. To make our endorsement decisions we collected candidate biographical information, reviewed their public statements, surveyed their views on conservation […]