From the Archives of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

Conservancy has Arrived

Guest Editorial from June 1973 issue by Skip Johnson, then Environmental Editor for the Charleston Gazette

Rachel Carson is often credited with ushering in the Age of the Environment with her book, "Silent Spring." To me, the environmental movement in West Virginia is synonymous with the emergence of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.

It doesn’t seem possible that more than 10 years have passed since Miss Carson awakened the nation to the dangers of pesticides. By the same token, could it be possible the Conservancy is eight years old?

But yes, in looking back over the issues in which the Conservancy has become involved, it becomes quite possible that this environmentalist group is eight years old going on nine.

The list is long: Otter Creek, Dolly Sods, Cranberry, Rowlesburg Dam, Shavers Fork River, Highlands Scenic Highway, Davis Power Project, Williams River, Blue Ridge Project, Swiss Dam, strip mining, clear cutting, roads into bear country, Back Fork of Elk, highways through the Highlands, and even the SST. In an era where people don’t want to become involved, the Conservancy is like a brook trout swimming upstream against a strong current.

It’s finest moment to date was its victory in Otter Creek, where it took on Island Creek Coal Company and the U.S. Forest Service and successfully blocked the bulldozing of roads for coal prospecting. This was hailed -- rightly so -- as a landmark victory for environmentalists.

And certainly the efforts of the Conservancy are at least partly responsible for the fact that the Rowlesburg Dam hasn’t yet been built, that coal mining isn’t occurring on the upper Shavers Fork, that three West Virginia areas are being considered for Wilderness status, and that the Highlands Scenic Highway is getting more environmental consideration than it once did.

The success of the Conservancy stems from the fact that it gets a lot of different people from different walks of life involved in a common goal: a better environment for West Virginia and West Virginians. What could be more purposeful than that?

Every government bureaucracy, every greedy coal executive, every politician needs a suspicious citizen looking over his shoulder. The Conservancy is West Virginia’s suspicious citizen, and more power to it.