Building Back Better in Coal Country: Diversity, Sustainability, and Creativity in Southwest Virginia
Frank Kilgore has roots in southwest Virginia dating back to the 1770s. Although a lawyer by trade, Kilgore spends much of his time and energy working to rewrite the narrative of Appalachia and coal country. He sees a reality in southwest Virginia that goes deeper than the negative stereotypes that plague the region. “You can hate the carbon but please don’t hate the people that have gotten it out of the ground for hundreds of years so you can have electricity. It’s time for carbon to phase out… [but] we need good jobs here because we have some of the best workers in the nation,” Kilgore explained.
Kilgore is committed to telling the story of deep commitment, hope and potential that he sees across the area, particularly as relates to the region’s youth. Despite the area’s economic challenges, the region exceeds much of the state on standardized test scores (SOLs). Additionally, they are home to a world-renowned high school robotics team that has competed on national and global stages.
Kilgore is working to tell these success stories across the State- buying advertisements in newspapers across Virginia that tout the achievements of the region’s youth to help change perception and increase investment in the area. “It cost about $10 to $12,000 for each [ad], but I wanted people to know about it.” Kilgore has lobbied in Richmond for the past 50 years, authored multiple books on Southwest Virginia’s rich history, built local trail systems, and helped start a law school and pharmacy school in the region.
Kilgore is just one of many committed individuals and groups working to write the new story of Southwest Virginia and advance a just, equitable transition from its boom-and-bust history.
The Boom and Bust: A History of Coal and Tobacco
Southwest Virginia, as with much of Central Appalachia, has a long social and economic history based in resource extraction, particularly coal. The historic coalfields of southwest Virginia consist of over 1,500 square miles, spanning across Buchanan, Lee, Russel, Tazewell, Dickenson, Scott, and Wise counties and the City of Norton. Whil the state of Virginia has been mining coal for centuries, near the end of the 19th Century, Southwest Virginia established itself as a global leader in coal production, fueling the growth of the nation and much of the world. Since then, coal has accounted for nearly the entire economic base of much of the region.
While coal has seen its share of booms and busts over the years, the past several decades have been particularly volatile. Since the 1990s, coal production and prices across the region and the country in have been in decline. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission and Energy Information Administration, coal production fell nearly 45% between 2005 and 2015 across Central Appalachia and national production is at the lowest levels in four decades. This decline has been sparked by the perfect storm of social and economic factors including the rise of natural gas, new environmental regulations, and lower international demand. “Everything that could hit you in the coalfields hit at the same time… It’s a wreck,” stated Kilgore.
In addition to its’ coal legacy, southwest Virginia has deep agricultural roots, particularly related to tobacco production. Since settlement in the early 17th Century, Virginia has been one of the top producers and exporters of tobacco across the world. However, in recent decades, a steep decline in demand for tobacco in conjunction with growing international markets directly impacted tobacco farmers across the region. Between 1970 and 2010, agricultural employment dropped by 35% across the region. Anthony Flaccavento, a sustainable economic development specialist in the region, explained, “It was pretty obvious by the later 90s that tobacco was going out as a crop that works for small farmers… quotas were shrinking, profits were declining and the federal tobacco program was looking like it might come to an end which happened in 2004.”
The decline of the region’s economic base has had cascading effects on local communities. As jobs in coal and tobacco disappeared, there were few alternatives available. Without employment opportunities, many have left the region, further exacerbating socioeconomic challenges. Between 2006 and 2017, the region lost nearly 15,000 people. However, amid socioeconomic challenge and change, many across the region have been working for decades to build a new, more sustainable and resilient economy that fosters community health and wellbeing.
Building a Just Transition: Leveraging Assets and Diversifying the Economy
As the region faced the economic, environmental, and social externalities from the boom and bust of coal and tobacco, many local leaders and stakeholders realized the danger of dependance on a single-source economy and are working to diversify the region’s economic base and invest in the area’s many assets. “We’re trying everything… It’s a hodgepodge. Like any other thriving community you better have a whole lot of everything,” stated Kilgore. From building the recreation and tourism industry to encouraging entrepreneurship to advancing niche agricultural markets, a variety of initiatives are forming the building blocks for a diverse, sustainable, and resilient new economy.
Recreation
Community members across the region are proud of their rich base of natural resources and are working to leverage these assets through non-extractive activities. While stakeholders realize that recreation cannot be the only answer to economic development, it as an important tool in the toolbox of building the social, cultural, and financial capital of local communities.
The region is home to multiple parks and natural areas that support diverse types of tourism and recreation. Located across 5,000 acres of Southwest Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, Breaks Interstate Park is one of only two interstate parks in the nation. The park offers diverse recreational opportunities from hiking to biking to rafting to fishing and brings in tourists from across the Southeast and the country. Austin Bradley was born and raised in Southwest Virginia and has worked at Breaks Interstate Park for the last decade as a naturalist and now as the park superintendent. He is committed to developing the park in a way that supports the local economy while protecting the region’s natural resources. “What I would like to see as visitation to the park increases is that the local towns surrounding the park all get on board and start trying to create additional services for guests to this area” he explained. “We are speaking the language of economic impact and jobs.” Bradley has seen new breweries and restaurants pop up in the towns surrounding the park as well as established businesses transition to adapt to the growing recreation industry, selling camping and hiking gear.
The Clinch River is another one of the area’s natural gems that local leaders are investing in. Traveling 135 miles through the region, the river is a biodiversity hotspot, home to over 45 species, of which over 20 are at risk of extinction, and is also an important thread connecting towns and communities across Southwest Virginia. The Clinch River Initiative was started in 2012 as a collaborative effort to build local economies along the Clinch and conserve the region’s natural resources. Over the past decade, the Initiative has been advocating for and planning a state park that consists of various properties along the course of the river. The park will provide opportunities for recreation support public access to the river and surrounding landscapes. The park received initial funding from the Virginia General Assembly in 2016 and when completed it will be the first park of its type in the State.
Agriculture
As tobacco production declined, stakeholders across the region began to think about and develop sustainable agricultural alternatives with market potential. Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD), a regional nonprofit based in Abingdon, has been working with farmers and paving the way for new agricultural markets for the last thirty years. Despite their origins in sustainable timber products, their focus has turned more to niche products such as medicinal herbs.
Katie Commander has been working with Appalachian Sustainable Development in recent years to advance sustainable agriculture that fits within the forested, rolling topography of the landscape. “In a lot of coal counties, there’s really not a ton of flat, tillable land where farmers could grow fruits and vegetables at a large scale, but there’s certainly a lot of woodlands and that’s where forest botanicals grow natively, like ginseng and goldenseal,” Commander explained. She works with farmers as well as customers and companies to increase transparency of sustainable production through various certifications and verifications.
A primary focus of ASD’s work is on connecting producers with diverse markets both within and beyond Southwest Virginia. “You have to look at multiple different markets and what are the gaps and the needs for accessing those different markets,” explained Commander. “That’s kind of the role that ASD has tried to play- to help fill in the gaps to help make it easier for farmers to access markets or if they don’t exist to try to build them up.” Locally, ASD works with communities across Southwest Virginia and into Northeast Tennessee to launch or strengthen farmers markets through The Appalachian Farmers’ Market Association.
In addition to developing markets within the region, ASD is working to build access to markets across the East. The Appalachian Harvest Food Hub started in 2000 to connect small and medium-scale farmers with larger markets and is one of the oldest food hubs in the country. By aggregating products from farmers across the region, small producers can reach larger markets that they would not have been able to on their own. Over the past two decades, the food hub has seen substantial growth from its humble origins, with markets now reaching from Georgia to Maryland. “We’re growing so much for the grocery stores up and down the East Coast that we had more demand than we had supply,” Commander described.
Entrepreneurship
As part of the region’s work to diversify their economy, there is also a push to support local entrepreneurship. Although multiple higher education and professional centers are housed in Southwest Virginia, including the University of Virginia at Wise, many are working to develop options for young people to stay and apply their education and training within the region. Frank Kilgore is one of many who sees the importance of the area’s youth in building social and economic resilience. He explained, “We have to…persuade the real smart kids to stay here and work themselves toward entrepreneurship or we will never get out of this vortex because you can’t lose your smartest people and have good economic development and civic leadership.”
Josh Sawyers, the Innovation Center Manager at UVA Wise, has been working to increase opportunities for young people to stay and work in the area. “With our Office of Economic Development, we’re really trying to get the opportunities into the region for them to come out of college and stay in the region and work,” explained Sawyers.
The UVA Wise Office of Economic Development purchased the Oxbow Center several years ago with the goal of helping kickstarting local businesses and startups, especially for young entrepreneurs in the area. The space includes an Innovation Center with over 2,000 ft of coworking space rented out at very low cost to lower the barrier to entry. “The hope is that [entrepreneurs] grow and they leave our facility and go out into some of the surrounding communities and start up their businesses,” Sawyers explained. “We are looking at the goal of increasing 1% of our startup rate over the next five years, which ultimately is going to mean that there is about 4,000 new startup businesses that will be formed in those next five years.”
Additionally, The Oxbow Center is soon to be home to the Clinch River Ecological Education Center or CREEC that will provide a space for environmental education and outdoor recreation as well as opportunities for entrepreneurship. Sawyers, as with other stakeholders in the region, sees the important connections between environmental protection and social and economic viability in the region. “We’re looking to see what the synergy [of those pieces] is going to be,” Sawyers stated. “We’re hoping that there will be some overflow as well- some creative companies that come out of that.”
Clean Energy and Mine Reclamation
Across Virginia, over 70,000 acres have been impacted by decades of strip mining and mountaintop removal. In the face of this environmental devastation, many are working to protect and restore the region’s strong base of natural resources while also focusing on ways that such restoration can provide opportunities for economic development. Joey James is a community development specialist with Downstream Strategies, an environmental and economic development consulting firm based in West Virginia. He has worked with other groups across Southwest Virginia to identify opportunities for economic development activities on degraded mine lands. “There is definitely no shortage of big ideas,” James stated.
Simultaneously, as coal production declines, there is an effort to implement solar energy projects, maintaining the region’s legacy in energy development while transitioning to more renewable sources. Joshua Sawyer of the UVA Wise Office of Economic Development described, “We still produce a lot of energy in the region where there is coal or natural gas, but we are starting to develop into solar and other alternative energy forces. As we go forward, we want to save Virginia’s energy capital.”
The Southwest Virginia Solar Workgroup is a collaborative group of local organizations and residents working to develop a renewable energy industry in the region. Appalachian Voices, a non-profit building healthy communities and landscapes across Central Appalachia, is one of the conveners of the Workgroup. Renewable energy expert Chelsea Barnes has worked with Appalachian Voices in Southwest Virginia for the past two years, working with partners across the region to get more solar projects on the ground. “I think where we’ll find success moving forward is in pairing solar projects with other kids of economic development on abandoned mine lands… I think [that] will be the sweet spot,” she explained. In October of this year, Appalachian Voices the Solar Workgroup received funding for their first commercial solar project at Iron Works Cycling in Big Stone Gap.
However, various restrictions and regulations present challenges for mine reclamation and clean energy development in the region. For instance, many local utilities do not permit net metering for solar. Net metering allows solar owners to sell energy back to the grid, greatly increasing the economic benefits of clean energy development. Even the utilities that are more open to net metering do not allow it for schools and local governments. “Not being able to do solar projects on schools or local governments is a huge hit to the potential in the area,” explained Barnes.
Additionally, a majority of abandoned mines in the region are held by out-of-state land holding companies which presents challenges in planning and implementing both remediation efforts and economic development projects on these lands. Yet, as coal continues to phase out and become less profitable, land-holding companies are recognizing the benefit of diversifying their portfolios. “These large bank holding companies are starting to understand what an alternative future might look like and are becoming more open to alternative ways of making money,” James explained.
From agriculture to recreation to clean energy, Southwest Virginia is approaching the transition by investing in diverse industries that are all connected pieces of the puzzle of community and economic development. Many working in the space of transition have seen the benefits of this approach for ramping developing a wider swatch of economic alternatives. Sustainable community development expert Anthony Flaccavento explained, “When you look at the landscape now, there’s pretty substantial work going on… I think the field is certainly not mature but there are a lot more economic sectors where people are working to create these alternatives.” All of these efforts and their impact on the community, environment, and economy are playing a key role in rewriting the narrative of success in the region.
The Worm that Slowly Turns: Ramping Up and Building Momentum
As local leaders invest in the many diverse assets of the region, they face various barriers to increasing the pace and scale of transition. While there has been financial investment in the region such as through funds from the Office of Surface Mining, many feel it is not close to reaching the level of need as funding often gets prioritized for urban areas. “The biggest issue that underlies this whole thing is finding the money to do some of these projects,” stated Joey James of Downstream Strategies. “The capital that is available does not match the opportunity.” Many working on just economic transition in the region also see the need for new policies that provide this deeper, place-based investment while undoing antiquated subsidy and funding structures. “Without major policy shifts, we’ll continue to sort of sputter along… we really need the kind of policy shifts leading to major investments,” stated Anthony Flaccavento.
However, recently the worm has been turning a little more quickly and many local efforts are gaining momentum within the region and as relates to state and federal investments and policy. On the one hand, many who have been working to move the needle on just transition for decades are seeing growing interest in transition locally. Frank Kilgore explained the changing mindset he is seeing across the region: “Enough coalfield general legislators finally figured out that coal’s hitting a tipping point and going down fast- way after the wolf came through the door.” At the state and national level, there has been more movement behind implementing policies that support just economic transitions, particularly as relates to clean energy. For instance, the Virginia Clean Economy Act that passed in spring of 2020 creates the state’s first clean energy standard and paves the way for 100% clean energy by 2050. This new momentum across the board has been key in getting more interest in transition efforts and more projects in the works. “I think we’re closer to seeing some really big projects in the area than we were even six months ago,” stated Joey James.
Amid both the challenges and successes of these efforts, grassroots leaders continue to forge ahead in building local power from the ground-up and finding creative ways to build community capital, resilience, and sustainability across Southwest Virginia. The trajectory of grassroots efforts in recent years highlights the assets and opportunity in the region and the importance of comprehensive investment. As put by Breaks Interstate Park Superintendent Austin Bradley, “You just have to be willing to keep trying new things and just accept the fact that it’s all going to be a process.”
