Dear Friends & Concerned Citizens, November 5, 2020

Election day is over (whew!), but now begins election week…(or weeks? A month? Months?!). There will be time to discuss the results and how they impact the waters of West Virginia, but most importantly in this moment, we want to check on you. Are you doing OK?

The anxiety we’re all feeling takes a toll on our bodies and minds. It takes a toll on who we are, and how we feel about each other. With all the emotions we’re feeling, mundane tasks like grocery shopping or checking email become insurmountable. In more ways than one, 2020 has made it hard to breathe.

Yesterday, during a virtual staff meeting, we found ourselves reflecting on a recent breathing and mindfulness exercise we participated in during a socially-distanced staff retreat at Babcock State Park. Lately, we’ve all found ourselves turning to the strategies we learned to find a little calm and catch our collective breath.

We want to share a couple tips to help you regain control (of your breath at least!) if you are feeling anxious.

>> Go outside. You don’t have to go far. From state parks and forests to local hiking trails to your own backyard, anywhere you can feel the breeze, hear the birds, and see the sun.

>> Get grounded. This step is literal. Take off your shoes and socks and let your feet touch the ground. Think about it – how often do you ever truly feel the soft grass or crinkle a fallen leaf or dig through loose soil? Let those toes fly!

>> Breathe in, breathe out… Once you’re in a comfortable position – sitting, standing, wherever you feel relaxed – inhale slowly through your nose, fill your belly (you read that right) up with air, and then slowly exhale through your nose or mouth. Continue breathing this way until you feel calm, peaceful, and ready to go on with your day.

Try it right now: take one deep breath in while you count to four, then slowly release it as you count to four. Practice this breathing exercise for about a minute and see how you feel. Hopefully, you’ll feel a little more relaxed.

Finding a breath of fresh air

To clean water and deep breaths,

— The WV Rivers Team

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Donate to our activities if you can do:

West Virginia Rivers Coalition
3501 MacCorkle Ave SE #129 | Charleston, West Virginia 25304
304-637-7201 | wvrivers@wvrivers.org

New Germany State Park, Western Maryland

When:  Saturday May 12, 2018,  10:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Location: New Germany State Park, Garrett County, Maryland

Discover the important connection between native plants, people, and wildlife at the fifth annual Mountain Maryland Native Plant Festival!

A large variety of plants native to the mid-Atlantic for sale all day! (Please contact vendors directly if you wish to pre-order for pick-up at the event. Purchases made the day of the event are cash or check only.)

Primary Sponsors:

1. Evergreen Heritage Center, Mount Savage, MD, www.evergreenheritagecenter.org

1. Go Native Tree Farm, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, www.gonativetrees.com

1. Wood Thrush Native Plant Nursery, Floyd, Virginia, www.woodthrushnatives.com

Scheduled programs & activities highlight native plants & biodiversity!

Educational programs geared for adults & teens:

• 10:30 to 11:30 am - Nasty Natives? No! (Fact-checking Common Misconceptions about Native Plants) - Candy DeBerry, Professor of Biology, Washington & Jefferson College
• 12:00 to 1:00 pm - Species Complexity: Species, Subspecies, Variants, Eco-types, and Phenotypes - Ian Caton, Owner/Operator, Wood Thrush Native Plant Nursery
• 1:30 to 2:30 pm - Saving the Planet, One Plant at a Time: How a community’s renewed love of native plants can contribute to large-scale biodiversity conservation - Iara Lacher, Landscape Ecologist, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Family-friendly activities:

• 10:00 to 11:00 am - Birds & Blooms (discover birds & wildflowers during this easy walk)
• 2:00 to 3:00 pm - Let’s Pull Together (pull garlic mustard to save an endangered butterfly)
• All day! - Scavenger Hunt (find native plants with special features and win a prize)

Local experts answer questions on native plants & other conservation topics!

• Engage Mountain Maryland - www.engagemmd.org
• Evergreen Heritage Center - www.evergreenheritagecenter.org
• Friends of New Germany State Park –  www.facebook.com/FriendsofNewGermanystatepark
• Frostburg Grows - www.frostburggrows.com
• Maryland Conservation Corps -http://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/mcc.aspx
• Maryland Native Plant Society - www.mdflora.org
• Sierra Club Maryland Chapter - www.sierraclub.org/maryland
• University of Maryland Extension, Garrett County Master Gardeners - www.extension.umd.edu/garrett-county/home-gardening

To get a better idea of why this continues to be such a nice event, view this video created at last year’s festival by our friends at Engage Mountain Maryland:

https://youtu.be/eFkj4lahKcw

New Germany State Park and the Western Mountains Chapter of MNPS are co-sponsoring this FREE event. More details to follow!

Directions: From I-68 take Exit 22 and follow signs for New Germany State Park. Turn left into the park onto McAndrews Hill Road. Signs will direct you to parking for this special event.

Infrastructure, including stormwater systems, roads, bridges, water treatment plants, and locks and dams, is aging across the nation.   Federal and state programs are having trouble keeping up with necessary maintenance and modernization; regional agencies, such as the 10-county Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, are a sensible solution since ailing infrastructure often causes regional problems (ex. inadequate waste water treatment upstream causes drinking water treatment problems downstream).

With gas drilling activity putting additional strain on infrastructure, it only makes sense for some of the increased state revenue from natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale region to be put toward improvements in roads, water treatment, and other public projects.  Taxes and fees aside, Pennsylvania has been grappling with the question of how to handle royalty payments that are starting to roll in from leases on state parks and forests.  While the governor and others are eying the money for various projects, the U.S. Department of the Interior is scrutinizing whether any of the 175 gas wells on public lands in Pennsylvania are even legal. According to a 1964 federal conservation law, land purchased using money from the Land and Conservation Fund can not be converted to non-recreation use (i.e. a well pad) without prior approval by the National Park Service.  Such approval was never requested nor obtained.  Additionally, if such conversions were made, Pennsylvania would have to “buy land of at least equal value to compensate, and…use any revenue from leases or royalties…for conservation and recreation purposes only.” (Read the full article here…) The Conservation Fund lands issue also applies to West Virginia.

Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, a statewide environmental group, is taking a different approach to protecting public lands: last week they launched a campaign asking natural gas companies to voluntarily pledge not to drill in the state’s parks.  Rather, they ask that the gas resources underlying public land be tapped into using horizontal drilling, with a 300-foot buffer around the park boundary.  The article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentions that the campaign is modeled after a West Virginia law prohibiting drilling in state parks, but it should be noted that the law was only enacted in 1961, and is not retroactive to mineral rights separated before that date.