WEEK 36: WEST VIRGINIA
Finding Common Ground Between West Virginia and the Arctic
By Joseph Hankins, Vice-President of The Conservation Fund, a national non-profit that encourages conservation and sustainable development, and Director of The Conservation Fund’s Freshwater Institute in Shepherdstown, West Virginia
I work in West Virginia. That may seem an incongruous qualification for authoring a blog in a series uncovering and celebrating national connections to the Arctic. Some would point to the undeniable role of West Virginia as a fossil fuel producer and draw blaming ties to the warming of our globe’s most northern region. That is a connection, but there is plenty of science, politics and narrative already available on that one, so I’d like to take this opportunity to try to provide a different perspective. By looking more closely at these two places and using a little history — both the natural and the social kind — I hope to use this post to highlight where the Arctic and West Virginia have some common ground, and the challenges and opportunities they both face.
West Virginia is not the Arctic, but we do share some historic attributes in terms of our physical remoteness, the resilience of our people, and our natural resource wealth.
My experience here in the Mountain State (a tip of the hat to the rugged terrain of our scenic Allegheny Mountains) has taught me that we are all surely connected in ways that are often surprising and meaningful. Seeing those relationships has helped me to better understand and communicate my conservation work in ways that are important to success. We save the places we care about. Seeing or imagining ourselves in those special places provides the empathetic link that makes environmental, financial and social action possible. As we rush to understand a changing Arctic, to inform conservation policy and economic opportunity, we should also press to understand Appalachia, as there are solutions in one place to challenges found in the other.
The Arctic is a far away concept for most residents of West Virginia. Yet we share some of the Arctic’s history of remoteness. The rugged high elevations of the eastern and central regions of West Virginia were largely unsettled until late into the 19th century, remaining a last wild and final refuge for large mammals like the eastern wood bison, cougar and elk. The Canaan Valley in the High Alleghenies is the highest altitude valley east of the Mississippi and the Dolly Sods Wilderness represents a long isolated muskeg, heath barren and sub-alpine remnant forever disconnected after glacier retreat of similar expanses of boreal and Arctic habitat now far to the north. Today visitors can still find plants and wildlife here that are as imperiled and stranded by geographic circumstance and climate change as their Arctic brethren.
West Virginia is not the Arctic, but we do share some historic attributes in terms of our physical remoteness, the resilience of our people, and our natural resource wealth. The familiar pattern of exploration, discovery and rational development in the Arctic is tempered today with a profoundly better, but still imperfect, understanding of the consequences of our actions and our collective responsibility for thoughtful conservation and protection. Our better understanding today is built in no small part on what we have learned and experienced in places like the West Virginia coalfields.
West Virginia is an energy state, both in fact and in the mind of the public. The abundant natural resources of timber, coal, water, petroleum and now shale gas encouraged exploration, settlement, investment and development for more than a century. One of my favorite places, where history, economy, and nature come together is Nuttallburg, a well-preserved former mining town now in the care of the National Park Service and protected as part of the New River Gorge National River.
The story of John Nuttall and his family is a time travel view into the surety of human purpose and determined spirit that explains how boomtowns explode and fade, how fortunes are made and lost, and the impermanence of resources and technology. A visitor comes to Nuttallburg with today’s sensibilities for environmental care, social justice and economic expectations but leaves with recalibrated insight into our national path from the wondrous discovery of “smokeless coal” to the global search for renewable alternatives.
Much like the natural resources in the Arctic are a siren’s song today to the world’s economy, the early call from Appalachia was just attractive to those entrepreneurs and workers who came to Coal Country in the early 1800s. The resulting exploitation of the mineral and timber wealth of West Virginia supported and powered America’s industrial revolution through two world wars, steam powered rail, the gas light era, and now the electrification of rural homes and cities from New York to Atlanta.
Today we are still counting up the costs and benefits of that exploitation in both reality and rhetoric. One of my favorite apocryphal contributions to the tabulation, often retold in the West Virginia coal fields, is the notion that the discovery and development of coal oil, and later the common gasification of coal for gas lights “saved the whales,” whose oil was previously used for household lighting. By this accounting, but for displacement of whale oil in the 1860s by the cheaper and more abundant mineral options, commercial whaling would have continued until total biological extinction. This proudly-told story may be imperfect logic to an economist but I like it just the same. The environmentalist in me finds a believable perspective to be found in how the good intent of our actions and the advancements of our time will be measured tomorrow with more complete and consequential understanding.
We save the places we care about. Seeing or imagining ourselves in those special places provides the empathetic link that makes environmental, financial and social action possible.
My work today, with my Conservation Fund colleagues, is largely focused on the southern coalfield counties of West Virginia. It is a rugged landscape of industrial ravage and promising recovery. The desperate human poverty and ecological ruin are juxtaposed with a still striking beauty and natural wealth. There are coalfield communities lost and assets stranded as our national economy pivots and moves toward new frontiers and energy sustainability. Every day I meet resilient, resourceful people looking for a better future but finding themselves left behind and blamed for failure. There remains the expressed hope that familiar coal jobs will return, though in my experience, it is less about allegiance to an industry and much more about finding a sense of personal value and purpose. Like Wally Spero in the Gene Logsdon fable, there is innate talent, grit, and love of place to be found in Appalachia and that must be supported and put to work.
A parallel of sorts can be drawn to the situation in Alaska today, where the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope fueled the previously-unimaginable economic development of America’s Arctic and in those cities that facilitated the growth of state’s petroleum industry. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the lives and livelihoods of those reside in the U.S. Arctic and the state more broadly are dependent upon the price of oil. (Oil revenues fund nearly 90% of Alaska’s budget, and the industry is responsible for 1/3 of Alaska’s jobs.)
With the collapse of the oil industry, the State is left with hard choices about how to move forward, especially as the world’s economy moves away from the hydrocarbon-releasing fuels that cause climate change.
And like West Virginians, Alaskans and Alaska Natives are also a people of talent and grit, who share our strong love of place. And like us, I have no doubt that they will overcome these modern economic, energy, and environmental challenges through a combination of fortitude, innovation, and resilience.
The challenge for those who live in both places is how to create a sustainable alternative, to build economic diversity from distress. The Conservation Fund is responding in both places, working to rebalance the economy and the environment through a wide variety of initiatives.
In West Virginia, by investing through our Working Forest Fund program, we are committed to ensuring that the state’s forest resources continue to provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat, and economic benefits for communities. We are deep into a collaboration with the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources to reintroduce elk to the state. The last elk in West Virginia were recorded in 1846, a native population extirpated by market hunting and habitat loss over the early 19th century. With a long view and vision, elk restoration is seen as a proud wildlife benchmark for the state, not to mention an economic boon for outdoor tourism and the recreation economy. Conservation groups are also taking similar steps in the U.S. Arctic.
As the arc of the Arctic and West Virginia story lines advance toward the future, these are places surely connected by rapid change and large opportunity. The conservation challenge of blending economic potential and environmental protection will require our best effort in both places.
About the Author: Joseph Hankins joined The Conservation Fund in 1992 to develop aquaculture, sustainable rural economic development and technology outreach in Appalachia. The Conservation Fund is a a national nonprofit that aims to increase conservation by balancing economic and environmental goal. Today he leads the Freshwater Institute in West Virginia, an internationally-recognized research and consulting program focused on water reuse technology in food production. He is known for bringing a biologist’s eye and an entrepreneur’s passion to the modern issues in conservation. H e also serves as an Officer of the Natural Capital Investment Fund. He is active in local and regional work-groups focused on the strategic importance of water, community water infrastructure planning, and life cycle assessment. Mr. Hankins holds an M.S. in Environmental Biology from Hood College and a B.S. in General Science from Purdue University. You can contact him via email at jhankins@conservationfund.org.
