Articles by meshdev

03/31/22

Casey, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Clean Up Water Pollution from Abandoned Mines

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For Immediate Release – March 30, 2022 Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Mike Braun (R-IN) introduced the Safeguarding Treatment for the Restoration of Ecosystems from Abandoned Mines (STREAM) Act with U.S. Representatives Matt Cartwright (D-PA-8) and David McKinley (R-WV-1). Acid mine drainage (AMD)—the release of highly acidic water from abandoned mines— is one of the largest sources […]

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11/01/21

NASA DEVELOP Team partners with FOC to assess Flood Risk and Changing Climate specific to Preston and Tucker Counties

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For FOC’s Cheat River Restoration program, we often have to focus our efforts on being reactive to negative impacts to the Cheat; cleaning up after abandoned mine lands has been the meat of our restoration work for more than two decades.   This year, however, we were given a rare and unique opportunity to be proactive in planning our restoration efforts, which was afforded to […]

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10/05/21

Friends of the Cheat Receives $1.1 million from Appalachian Regional Commission’s POWER Initiative for Mountaineer Trail Network

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Today, Friends of the Cheat was awarded $1.1 million by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) on behalf of the Mountaineer Trail Network Recreation Authority. The goal of this project is to formally launch the Mountaineer Trail Network as a collection of the best non-motorized trails in the eastern United States for bikes and boats. Friends of the Cheat and its […]

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09/29/21

AML Program Fee Collection Expires Sept 30

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Tomorrow marks a frustrating day for FOC staff and other organizations working to remediate acid mine drainage (AMD) impacted streams and rivers. On September 30, the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) fee collection expires, and halts a majority of the future funding FOC and WVDEP could use to treat AMD sources in the Cheat River watershed.  The Abandoned Mine Lands reclamation […]

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03/04/21

Muddy Creek AMD Blowout

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Update – March 8th:  Since our original sampling Thursday evening when pH was 3.65, FOC has pulled several sets of Water Quality (WQ) samples in Muddy Creek and the Cheat River downstream of Muddy. On Friday, we deployed our Muddy Creek live reading sonde, which reports live water quality data to FOC staff remotely every ten minutes. Since then, we […]

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07/01/20

Fish Tails Tell the Tale

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In June, I joined two Friends of the Cheat staff members to cast lines into the Cheat River at the mouth of Muddy Creek, hoping to catch a bass, trout, walleye, or maybe even a musky. Truth be told, I think we were hoping to catch any sort of fish since Muddy Creek and the section of the Cheat River […]

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04/28/20

Monongahela National Forest Celebrates 100 Years of Conservation and Service

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April 28 marks the 100-year anniversary (#MNF100) of the establishment of Monongahela National Forest. In 1920, following the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911, President Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation designating land purchased for the protection of the Monongahela River as Monongahela National Forest. Since that time, the Forest has grown from an initial 7,200 acres to more than […]

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04/01/20

Funding Awarded to Study the Removal of the Albright Dam on the Cheat River

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Friends of the Cheat has been awarded $100,000 from the DTE Foundation to study the removal of the Albright Power Station Dam. Other than the dam at Cheat Lake, this obsolete dam, located 29.3 miles upstream of Cheat Lake, is the only barrier to aquatic passage for migrating species of fish, such as walleye, throughout the entire 78.3 mile-long Cheat […]

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10/01/19

Friends of The Cheat Receives $50,000 from Appalachian Regional Commission to create a Preston County Trail Plan.

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Friends of The Cheat was awarded $50,000 by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) for a technical assistance project that will result in the creation of the first comprehensive Trail Plan within the newly formed Mountaineer Trail Network. Centered in Preston County, West Virginia, this countywide Trail Plan will map all existing trail resources, highlight existing connection gaps, and identify trail […]

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08/03/17

FOC Notes the 40th Anniversary of the Surface Mining Reclamation & Control Act

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Thursday, August 3rd marks the 40th anniversary of our country’s landmark coal mining law, the Surface Mining Reclamation & Control Act, known commonly as SMCRA (pronounced “smak-rah”).  SMCRA was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on this day in 1977.  SMCRA regulates the environmental effects of coal mining and its passage created the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and […]

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