By Jordan Howes, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy

When Linda Durrett talks about the Barbour County farm her family has held since 1848, her voice carries generations of memories. The land once included several hundred acres, a large family house, stands of timber, a beaver pond, old gas wells, an abandoned coal mine, and a native cold-water trout stream. “My memories of the farm,” she said, “is that it was truly the most spectacular, happy place in my life, and it still is.” She and her brother recently inherited 65 acres. As it stands, much of it remains intact, but not all of it. 

One branch of the native trout stream, the one closest to Corridor H, has run sulfur-yellow for decades, ever since blasting for the highway fractured an old underground coal seam on the property. What was once a thriving trout stream was suddenly choked with sulfur, sediment, and acidifying runoff. As Linda told it, “I remember going down and everything in that creek was just clouded over with yellow sulfur dust. Nothing was growing; nothing survived. Not on the banks and not in the creek. And I was told, don’t even walk in there… Don’t go near that.” 

The family had known Corridor H might one day run across their land. Linda recalled being “very, very young… first grade maybe,” when older generations first learned a highway could divide the farm. “My grandparents lived on the farm,” she said, “and I do remember everybody sitting around the big kitchen table and talking endlessly about how this was going to impact the farm… We don’t know. Nobody has really let us know, you know, when, how, what.” 

As the years passed, new segments of the road were built in other counties. By the 1970s and again in the 1990s, the family saw more concrete plans, including early drafts that would have run directly along the native trout creek on the Durrett’s property. Linda’s father, a man who believed the land was sacred, reached out for help in defending the stream. He spoke with a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff member who was familiar with trout habitats, and after long conversations and persistent advocacy, the proposed alignment of Corridor H was shifted to the north side of the property. “There were lots of nights,” Linda recalled, “where my dad stayed up all night talking to this gentleman.” Even with the shift, blasting for the route still shook the land. She recalled sitting at the kitchen table with her grandmother, feeling the farmhouse tremble. “Sometimes we’d wait until all the crews had left, and we’d go out and wander around the construction site,” Linda remembered. 

Years later, it became clear that one of the old underground mine seams beneath the property had ruptured. The acid-bearing rock began draining into the creek, and the once-pristine waterway changed almost immediately.  

After decades away, Linda retired in 2018 and moved back to Barbour County. Seeing the creek again, still yellow, still lifeless, was devastating. “I was very, very disturbed about how progress had killed this part of the land. It felt wounded to me and in trouble,” she said. Determined to understand the scope of the damage, she began contacting state agencies. Over six months, she made repeated calls before reaching someone at the Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Abandoned Mine Lands and Reclamation who agreed to speak with her about what might be done. 

She eventually learned that the contamination was exactly what she suspected: a ruptured coal seam. “He said, ‘Yes, that’s a coal seam fracture. And yes, it’s contaminated this creek.’” She also learned that because the blasting for Corridor H had caused the rupture, the state was responsible for addressing the damage. The remedy, however, came with a timeline that felt almost impossible. “He goes, it might be 20 years, it might be 50 years,” Linda said. “But there is a process that they can do to clean this stream up.” After that call, no one reached back out. “I’ve never heard another word,” she said. Though there was a clear acknowledgement of the damage resulting from a tax assessment that eventually lowered to reflect the impact on the property, though no agency stepped in to address the contamination itself. 

The long-term consequences are profound. “I was told that this coal seam, if it was not restored. It would leak for hundreds, maybe thousands of years into the creek,” she explained. The damage, in other words, is essentially permanent unless the state takes action. While the other branch of the stream, farther from the highway—still supports native trout, the affected branch remains compromised. 

As Linda reflects on the past and considers what happened to her family’s land, her perspective is not one of blanket opposition to development. She emphasized that she understands the need for modern infrastructure. “Progress is good,” she said. “We have to have progress… Humans have always progressed. I don’t want to live in a cave.” But she believes the harm done to her stream illustrates the consequences of poor planning and the failure to follow through. “Everything has a price,” she said. “Intelligent, sensible progress is what I think is important.” 

Her message for communities still facing new construction is simple and firmly rooted in her family’s lived experience. “It’s essential to have smart progress,” she said. “It’s critical to do the research, the homework, the studies, come up with the best plan… Hold people, their land, their property, this mother earth in high regard. Don’t destroy — build.” 

For Linda Durrett, the damage to her family’s trout stream remains an open wound. It is a reminder that once the land is altered, the effects can last for generations. And unless the state intervenes and assists in protecting natural areas such as this, the creek that shaped her childhood may continue running yellow long after the memories of how it once flowed have faded.