Knapps Creek in Pocahontas County. Much obliged for the photo, from Google Images. I'll be happy to attribute it if someone knows who took it.

I could scarcely contain my joy and amazement when I read on the front page of the Sunday, September 25 Charleston Gazette-Mail  that the Pocahontas County Commission has “raised major questions about the potential impact of Marcellus Shale drilling”  in that rural, remote county famous for some of the best downhill and cross-country skiing in the mid-Atlantic region, nationally ranked mountain bike terrain, clean air, and as the headwaters of no less than eight rivers, including the Gauley, world-famous for its whitewater.

Staff writer Paul Nyden quotes a letter from the county commissioners to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, stating their grave concern about the impacts to their pristine environmental and rural culture from the impending possibility of hydrofracture drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

“As a governing body, we do not want our local rights on this very local issue usurped or diminished by state governemnt,” Nyden quotes the letter as saying. “The  commission views the present proposed rules as grossly inadequate and failing to speak to our county’s unique needs.”  Martin V. Saffer, a lawyer and county commissioner, said the county’s environment benefits its people and all West Virginians, and that the county’s pure water, recreation, flourishing tourism industry, farms and timber will sustain its people for many, many future generations.

Pocahontas County residents Cyla Allison and Beth Little have helped to organize a grass-roots group called the Eight Rivers Council, according to Nyden’s article.  They and other members of the group are worried about the impact of fracking on their farm water.   “This is the way of life I chose,” says Allison.  “Many other people have lived here all their lives.

“The gas companies talk about all the jobs they are supposed to bring in. But when they set up wells, they bring in their own people from outside,” Allison says in the article.

No drilling permits have been issued in Pocahontas County, but Saffer says a “blizzard” of leases were obtained by gas companies in the fall of 2007 and winter of 2008, accounting for approximately 40,000 acres, a substantial percentage of privately held land in a county dominated by national and state parks.  Landowners will be faced with important decisions in 2012 and 2013.

It’s not often that elected officials in this most Appalachian of all American states take a stand to protect private citizens’ land, or express a mentality in favor of long-term sustainability over short-term greed.

Hooray for Saffer, David Fleming, and Jamie Walker, the county commissioners who took the time to travel to Wetzel County, West Virginia to see for themselves how the drilling business affects land and landowners.  Now let’s hope brains and guts not only prevail in Pocahontas County, but set an example for others.