Welch, WV

Photo by TripAdvisor

In a post last week, I highlighted the plight of the town of Welch, WV and its precarious location beside the confluence of the Tug and Elkhorn Rivers, both with a history of flooding. Sandwiched on tiny slivers of land between the rivers and tall wooded mountains that snake through southwestern West Virginia, there isn’t much room for water and people to coexist when the rains fall.

Welch was, for the first half of the 20^th Century, a prosperous coal town. Mining meant jobs, and local coal fed the appetites of nearby steel mills and beyond. Welch claimed itself “The Heart of the Nation’s Coal Bin.”  After the end of WWII, much changed.  By the 1960s, automation reduced the demand for mining labor, smaller steel mills closed, and the population of Welch (and McDowell County) dwindled.  One history adds this observation:

When presidential candidate John F. Kennedy visited Welch by automobile caravan in 1960, he saw a city whose businesses were struggling due to a growing poverty rate throughout the county. What Kennedy learned here during his campaign for the 1960 West Virginia primary was believed to be the basis of the aid brought to the Appalachian region by the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations. During a speech in Canton, Ohio on September 27, 1960, he stated "McDowell County mines more coal than it ever has in its history, probably more coal than any county in the United States and yet there are more people getting surplus food packages in McDowell County than any county in the United States. The reason is that machines are doing the jobs of men, and we have not been able to find jobs for those men."

The first recipients of modern era food stamps were the Chloe and Alderson Muncy family of Paynesville, McDowell County. Their household included fifteen persons. On May 29, 1961, in the City of Welch, as a crowd of reporters witnessed the proceedings, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman delivered $95 of federal food stamps to Mr. and Mrs. Muncy. This was the first issuance of federal food stamps under the Kennedy Administration, and it was the beginning of a rapidly expanding program of federal assistance that would be legislated in the "War on Poverty".

In the 1960s and 1970s, McDowell County coal continued to be a major source of fuel for the steel and electric power generation industries. As United States steel production declined, however, McDowell County suffered further losses. In 1986, the closure of the US Steel mines in nearby Gary led to an immediate loss of more than 1,200 jobs. In the following year alone, personal income in McDowell County decreased dramatically by two-thirds. Real estate values also plummeted. Miners were forced to abandon their homes in search for new beginnings in other regions of the country.

The Welch of the 21^st Century is but a remnant of its former self, yet those rugged, hard-working citizens who remain in the town hold tenaciously to their homes and community with pride. They watch out for each other too—just like the statement in my prior post by McDowell County Commissioner Michael Brooks who said the people of his county will step into harm’s way for their neighbors.

So it must be difficult for some to accept that, to avoid the incessant danger and threat of rising flood waters, they’ll have to leave.  Agencies like the Natural Resources Conservation Service offer buyout opportunities with incentives to encourage those in the most flood-prone areas to seek a new life elsewhere. Land purchased through this program is restored to flood plain conditions and development is banned.

But not everyone can simply start over elsewhere. Something must be done to help those who remain. There are. And the solutions offer hope, but not without controversy.  Just four days ago a local news outlet shared the following:

McDowell County Commissioner Michael Brooks is frustrated. He believes one of the biggest issues is a lack of proper stream maintenance in the county.

“There needs to be a massive effort throughout McDowell County and southern West Virginia to dredge and clean our streams. They’re completely full and many of our streams are nearly at road level, those that weren’t after this are now. That is a major, major issue,” said Brooks in an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline” which was live in Welch Thursday.

Brooks isn’t alone. Many have talked about the need to scour out the bottom of waterways like Elkhorn Creek and the upper stretches of the Tug Fork River along with tributaries which overflowed and caused major damage and destruction. Brooks said it doesn’t even take a major flood to push water into a roadway in many cases.

But there are always debates and roadblocks to dredging.

Money is always a factor when considering the cost of the work. Some often argue the cost of rebuilding is far less than the cost of mitigation.

But the bigger obstacle to dredging is environmental protection. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies typically throw up roadblocks to dredging to protect endangered species and the destruction of their habitat. The area’s watershed is home to several rare types of crayfish and the Candy Darter, all of which are considered species on the brink.

Brooks said his concern is McDowell County’s human population is on the brink.

“We can restock crawdads and we can restock fish, but when people leave these communities they never come back. That is unfortunately what we have faced here in McDowell County. When the population goes from 30 to 40 thousand people down to 18 thousand or so, people are tired,” he explained.

Brooks added after every flood the county has endured the population took a hit. People continue to leave his county in droves, many of them run off by an inability to protect their homes from rising water and an unwillingness to risk having to endure it again.

“In my opinion, respectfully, there’s a lot of people making these decisions that affect the lives of people like our folks here in southern West Virginia who live in a subdivision somewhere and never have those issues. We need some kind of a panel of folks who have lived this continually throughout their lives to demonstrate the significance,” said Brooks.

There are always trade-offs when it comes to nature and development, and it may be possible to create pathways for floodwaters and protect vulnerable structures. In fact there must be a way. But that’s a topic for another post.