Canyon Update
By Viv Stockman
- The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (WVHC) can survey the endangered species on Allegheny Wood Products (AWP) property within the Canyon. Several months ago, attorney Jason Huber filed a lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act on behalf of the Canyon critters, WVHC and Heartwood. A judge has ordered that our experts be allowed to study the threatened and endangered species and their habitat in the entire canyon. (Hint: this is expensive!)
- Judy Rodd was part of a press conference in Washington, DC, sponsored by the National Park Trust on national parks that was carried live on C-Span. She spoke about Blackwater Canyon as a potential new national park. See www.c-span.org/watch/otherevents.htm. Judy appears about a third of the way into the video.
- The press conference spawned other coverage, including an editorial endorsement of Blackwater Canyon National Park from the Clarksburg Exponent.
- Blackwater Canyon was featured on Public TV’s "West Virginia Journal." (The program is tentatively set to run this Thursday evening on WV Public TV.)
- In upcoming months we will be back in Washington, DC, meeting with national conservation organizations and lobbying our congressional delegation for support of Blackwater Canyon National Parks.
- Your continued letters to Congress and to newspaper editors will help support our efforts.
- Still no deal. The June 16 Memorandum of Understanding between John Crites of AWP and Governor Underwood that would deed 55 Blackwater Canyon acres, including 5 around Lindy Point, to Blackwater Falls State Park still has not been signed into a deed.
- That deal, when (and if) finalized, will not protect the Lindy Point viewshed, nor the ecological integrity of the Canyon.