It became really important to me to be involved in the health of my streams, but also I really
wanted to pass that knowledge on to the children.
This whole state is full of running water everywhere you look.
It's just not an ugly piece of land in the whole state of West Virginia, but Fayette
County in particular is, to me, the prettiest county in the state.
This area where I live I think is exceptional because of its rivers.
The New River is a famous river.
It's one of the largest rivers on the East Coast.
The Golly River is famous white water.
This whole state is full of running water everywhere you look.
But we have more people than ever right now, I think, interested in clean water.
We haven't really got started on this pipeline stuff, so if they're going to run it, which
they are, let's make sure they do it right.
Let's make sure we protect our rivers and streams.
The Elk, the Golly, and the Greenbrier are three of the most major rivers in this state.
We need people out there watching it and talking about it and calling for it, telling them
what they think.
It's so cool.
It is so cool.
I'm such a nerd.
I love this stuff.
For our program here in West Virginia and Virginia, we partner with the West Virginia
Rivers Coalition, and we look at where the highest quality water and best trout water
we have and where that's overlapped by gas pipelines or shell gas extraction, and we
try to find neighboring communities where there could be volunteer bases that we can
reach out to and engage in the programs.
Our goal really is to get folks out there in advance of development, collecting regular
monthly data to establish a solid baseline of water quality conditions.
If development does occur in the area, we have that baseline and we also have an active
group that can go out to these streams and be the eyes and ears on the ground, keeping
an eye on the streams and making sure that if there is a pollution event, we identify
it and we can report it appropriately to make sure it's taken care of.
Augusta County is a county that water does not flow into.
It only flows out of Augusta County.
This is where rivers start, and to have this area especially have the threat of contamination
here is, to me, just madness.
This water not only supplies the water in our area, but it's used in other parts of
the state, and it's used even as far as Washington, D.C.
The only thing that I know that I can do as a citizen is to monitor this water to make
sure it remains as pure as it's been.
I grew up in Rockingham County for part of my very small childhood, actually very close
to the forest, so did quite a bit of stream stomping as a child, looking for critters
under rocks and such.
I want to make sure that future generations have that opportunity as well and that we
don't mistreat our streams to the point that there's a possibility or a reason to be scared
of them from contamination.
I feel like I'm helping to make sure that that's not the case.
