Friends of the Cheat (FOC) is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization based in Preston County, WV. Formed in response to a pollution event caused by an illegally-sealed underground coal mine, FOC has worked for 28 years to map, monitor, and clean up acid mine drainage (AMD) pollution left by a 100-year legacy of unregulated and under-regulated coal mining. The lower Cheat watershed has 342 documented abandoned mine land seeps releasing toxic pollution into its tributaries.
In 1995, the Cheat was named one of the nation’s most endangered rivers by American Rivers. The River of Promise (ROP) partner task force, a coalition of state and federal agencies, academia, industry, and environmental groups, quickly formed. ROP advocates worked tirelessly to bring forward the resources needed to restore water quality degraded by pollution from abandoned mine lands. One keystone program borne from this advocacy, the Office of Surface Mining’s Watershed Cooperative Agreement Program, generated funding via a fee on active coal mining, and has since supported approximately $2.4M in AMD cleanup projects administered by FOC in the lower Cheat. These funds are matched with funding from USEPA, resulting in a total of nearly $6M in AMD cleanup.
As a result of the combined OSMRE funding and USEPA match, in addition to even more millions of dollars in land restoration and AMD treatment projects executed by WVDEP, the River of Promise partnership restored water quality to the Cheat River in two short decades. The Cheat River was declared ‘reborn’ in 2016.
Unfortunately, on September 30, 2021, the authorization for the collection of the Abandoned Mine Land fee expired. Planning and executing new projects is now in limbo, further complicated because the problem areas still remaining in the Cheat, such as the Lick Run portals, may not be eligible for funding. While the funding to address it may expire, the AMD pouring out of these mine seeps will continue for hundreds of years, putting the success story of the Cheat River at risk of regression, potentially bringing us back to the days of paddlers with nosebleeds and anglers with empty creels. With the passing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, $11 billion in treasury funds are to be used for reclamation of abandoned mine lands, but how those funds can be used is still in question.
Assuredly, FOC remains committed to its mission to restore, preserve, and promote; and to fiercely defend and protect the outstanding natural resources of the Cheat River watershed.
FOC Staff and Board of Directors
Amanda Pitzer, Executive Director (2010); Owen Mulkeen, Associate Director (2013); Valorie Dixon, Bookkeeper (2014); Beth Warnick, Media and Outreach Specialist (2015); Madison Ball, Restoration Program Manager (2018); Garrett Richardson, Monitoring Technician (2020); Lisa Maraffa, Program Assistant/Events Producer (2021)
Board of Directors: Charlie Walbridge, Interim Board Chair, Miranda Peddicord, Treasurer, Sarah Hinnant, Secretary, Connie Miller, Ben Hogan, Rick Chaney, Zach Fowler, Michael Strager, Dani Martin, Rich Dennis
Recreation and River Access Update
FOC’s Recreation and River Access Program continues to make giant strides for trails in Preston County and beyond.
RE-CREATE and RE-CREATING Projects: Progress towards the anticipated construction phase of the Cheat River Rail-Trail and destination-worthy Cheat River Trailhead continues to move forward; FOC released the Cheat River Trailhead Masterplan in July, along with the Keith Pitzer Pavilion design. FOC is awaiting the final environmental and structural assessments for the projects - look for updates on these exciting trail projects in the spring of 2022.
Mountaineer Trail Network: Created by legislative action in 2018, the planned Mountaineer Trail Network (MTN) will be a collection of non-motorized trails spanning 15 counties in northern WV: Barbour, Doddridge, Grant, Harrison, Lewis, Marion, Mineral, Monongalia, Preston, Randolph, Ritchie, Taylor, Upshur, and Wood.
In 2019, FOC received $50k in funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) Power program to work with project partners Downstream Strategies and Preston County Parks and Recreation Commission on the creation of the Preston County Master Trail Plan - a comprehensive planning document for the economic development of existing and proposed trails within Preston County. The Preston County Master Trail Plan is the first in a planned series of county-level plans, and will serve as a blueprint for the other counties within the network.
In 2020, FOC was awarded $50k in funding from the Just Transition Fund to further develop the operating guidelines and procedures for the MTN, and begin the formation of the Mountaineer Trail Network Recreation Authority (MTNRA), which will act as the governing body overseeing operations and economic development strategies within the MTN in the future.
New in 2021 - FOC was awarded $1.1 million in funding from ARC’s POWER Initiative on behalf of the MTNRA to formally launch the Mountaineer Trail Network over the next three years. Four to eight existing, top grade trail areas will be selected for inclusion, and ARC POWER funds will be used to enhance, brand, and market these trail areas and nearby tourism businesses as a nationally and world-renowned tourism destination for biking and boating.
Recognizing the enormous potential impact of the MTN, the project has widespread support across the region from 33 additional project partners, including 15 county commissions, five CVBs, three county economic development authorities, five county parks and recreation commissions, four state parks, West Virginia University’s Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative, the Flatwater Trail Commission, and 14 trail organizations across the project area.
Bacteria & Swim Guide Update
Safe, accessible public river access has long been a priority for FOC. FOC owns and maintains 3 whitewater access points along the Cheat River Canyon, and supports the maintenance of 9 public access points along the Upper Cheat River Water Trail (UCRWT). The upcoming Cheat River Rail-Trail Trailhead will serve as a public access point for the Cheat River Narrows. As FOC continues to expand, improve, and promote river access across the Cheat watershed, the responsibility falls upon us to provide recreationalists with reliable water quality data.
In 2017, FOC launched our Bacteria Program, through which 12 popular public access points, from Parsons to Cheat Lake, are monitored for levels of harmful bacteria. Water samples are collected and tested once a month during October, March, and April - and biweekly from May through September. Each access point is monitored for E. coli and total coliform, as well as temperature, pH, and conductivity. The results are posted to the sites’ corresponding pages at www.theswimguide.org/affiliates/friends-of-the-cheat/. Users can visit the website, or download the Swim Guide app, to check both current and historical water quality results, and view additional information about the access points, including maps and directions.
On the whole, water quality results confirm that the Cheat River remains an excellent choice for recreationalists. With the exception of Lower Rowlesburg Park - the last access point on the UCRWT, which is just downstream of a combined sewage overflow (CSO) pipe - all other monitored public access sites passed set standards at a rate of 90%-100% in the last year.
A large portion of the FOC Bacteria Program is funded by donations. Support our monitoring efforts by sponsoring your favorite access point - for $10 a month, your donations will help alleviate the cost of sampling supplies, personnel time, and travel expenses. Sign up through our website at https://www.cheat.org/swim-guide-monitoring-program/, or through the link below the photo on each Swim Guide access site page.
Partnership Highlight
NASA DEVELOP National Program
Launched in 1999, the NASA DEVELOP Program “formed to support the goals of NASA’s Digital Earth Initiative - a program to increase public access to federal information about the Earth and the Environment.” Over the last 20 years, the NASA DEVELOP Program has expanded to 11 locations throughout the nation, each location providing unique opportunities for over 200 yearly student interns to work with communities and organizations that would benefit from NASA’s Earth Science research. Teams of interns work for 10 weeks with their partnering organizations on a particular research topic, after which they present their results.
Mission: Integrating NASA Earth observations with society to foster future innovations and cultivate the professionals of tomorrow by addressing diverse environmental issues today.
Vision: Shaping the future by integrating Earth observations into global “decision making”.
“I grew up in Preston County and have lived in both Bruceton Mills and Kingwood. After I graduated from West Virginia University, I did 2 ten-week terms as a project team member in the NASA DEVELOP National Program, at the Idaho location in Spring 2019 working on the Argentina Water Resources project and at the Georgia location in Fall 2019 working on the Northern Forest Food Security & Agriculture II project. In January 2020, I became a Communications Fellow and Lead at the Alabama – Marshall Space Flight Center location. During my time as a Fellow I had the amazing opportunity to work with multiple project teams as they conducted 10 week feasibility studies to address community concerns from partner organizations. During the spring 2021 DEVELOP term I supervised a team of 4 members that worked on the Cheat Water Resources project. Currently I am the Impact Analysis Senior Fellow for the NASA DEVELOP program.” - Rochelle Williams
NASA DEVELOP Team partners with FOC to assess Flood Risk and Changing Climate specific to Preston and Tucker Counties
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 us by the NASA DEVELOP Team. We have noticed changes to the Cheat Watershed in recent years, including more frequent, monstrous rain events that have led to damaging floods, followed by periods of significant drought. During certain times of the year, sections of the Cheat look more like boulder fields than a river.
We know these conditions have serious consequences for our river communities, freshwater resources, and native species. So when NASA DEVELOP approached us to partner on a project using earth observation data and remote sensing technology, we leaped at the chance to forge FOC’s local knowledge with their expertise. We proposed a project designed to assess if the climate had changed in Preston and Tucker Counties, and if so, how these changes may lead to increased flood vulnerability. FOC’s goal with this project was to clearly identify vulnerable areas and seek restoration projects that will lead to a climate resilient river system, and therefore climate resilient communities.
In the spring of 2021, the NASA DEVELOP Team took a deep dive into the Preston and Tucker County data and discovered that “between 1970 and 2020, temperature has increased by about 1.5°C (2.7°F), and precipitation has increased by 4.2 inches, while monthly river discharge has become more variable. At the same time, there were no detectable trends in land cover at the county level.”
The temperature and precipitation increased occurred without major land disturbance, such as increased infrastructure development, leading FOC to wonder if these effects could multiply if land cover were to change significantly over the next 50 years.
Another concern is the noted variability in river discharge, or flows, providing evidence for what we have witnessed on the ground in recent decades. In the box and whisker plots below, the dots on the plot are the average yearly values of discharge. Any dot not plotted on the box or line for the decade is an outlier.The X in the plot is the mean for the decade, while the line in the box is the median for the decade. Looking at the X’s (means) for the decades, we can see that there is a trend upward. This indicates that the average discharge per decade is increasing.
FOC was surprised that the variability for the 1980s was not higher due to the 1985 Flood-- however, lower flows or more average flows recorded from other dates in the 1980s may have canceled out its effect when looking at the data as a whole from that decade. This further illustrates how widely the flow has varied in the last decade (2010s).
In addition to assessing climatology trends for Preston and Tucker Counties, the NASA DEVELOP Team also created a Flood Vulnerability Map of the project area.
To determine flood vulnerability, which the team defined as affecting human-made structures or human health, the team analyzed underground mine locations, road networks, and population density on the flood risk map (see Figures below).
Some areas that have been flooded before, such as Parsons, were not particularly surprising, but FOC staff were surprised by the vulnerability of the Masontown and Arthurdale area. Due to the concerns about increased flooding leading to worsened water quality due to acid mine drainage, the team analyzed mine vulnerability. While there are large areas of mining in the study region, only small sections of the mines intersected with the flood extent and were considered vulnerable. Many of the vulnerable mines are located in the region of North-West Preston county (Masontown, Reedsville, and Arthurdale).
Ultimately Friends of the Cheat will use these new tools and resources to pursue projects in vulnerable areas that will improve the Cheat’s chances of remaining stable in a changing climate. Projects that will increase the Cheat’s climate and flood resilience including improving and upsizing road crossing with streams (which also can improve fish passage), reforesting riparian areas to improve stream shade and reduce erosion in flooding events, securing funds to upsize stormwater and sewage treatment systems, and adapting acid mine drainage treatment sites and projects to be able to treat seasonal high flow volumes.