By Dave Lesher Among the weather headlines at the start of the New Year, we see that 2020 went into the weather record books as the fifth warmest year for the entire Lower 48 states since record-keeping started in 1895. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) made that analysis based on observations from more […]
Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, just filed two law suits against the former Trump administration after their final attacks on the Endangered Species Act that stripped vital protections from federal lands that research indicates are necessary for endangered and threatened species conservation. The first case challenges what the Trump administration defines as “habitat,” which […]
Friends of Blackwater is excited to celebrate the newest National Natural Landmark (NNL) site- the Bear Rocks and Allegheny Front Preserve! Located in Grant and Tucker Counties, these sites rocks the plateau world of the Allegheny Mountains in northeast West Virginia! Visiting Bear Rocks Preserve today, you’d see flat sedimentary rocks reaching right up to […]
A lawsuit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on January 8th seeks to reverse the Trump administration’s elimination of critical safeguards that have protected national forests from unneeded, ill-conceived and destructive logging, road building, and utility right-of-way projects. The U.S. Forest Service – under orders from President Trump to sell more publicly owned […]
Friends of Blackwater has signed onto a letter to President-Elect Biden as his team begins to address the COVID-19 public health crisis and develop an economic recovery plan, requesting the creation of long-term conservation and restoration jobs. The US can overcome this economic downturn while protecting and restoring our unique natural resources, including biodiversity, and […]
Congratulations to Pam Lutz for receiving the Friends of Blackwater’s 2020 Volunteer of the Year award! Pam was a tremendous help this past fall as FOB began the botanical restoration project along the Blackwater Rail Trail. She volunteered on several Wednesday mornings and tagged many of the invasive species that were later cut down and […]
On December 28th, Friends of Blackwater and 66 signees submitted the following petition language to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, requesting an increase in protection for three WV freshwater mussel species: “The long-solid and round hickory-nut mussels are on the brink of extinction, and have been forced out of most of their habitat due […]
Friends of Blackwater is congratulating West Virginia Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Capito, and Congressperson Carol Miller, for including the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve Designation Act in the year-end legislative package. The New River Gorge will become the 63rd National Park, the first in West Virginia, and the 20th National Preserve in […]
We are very concerned about a Forest Service plan in the works called the Upper Cheat River project. It covers 86,138-acres, nearly 10% of the entire Monongahela National Forest, and is located north of Parsons in Tucker, Barbour, and Preston Counties in the Upper Cheat River watershed. Within this project area are older growth forests, […]
On October 29th, Friends of Blackwater and the Center for Biological Diversity sent comments to Mon Forest Cheat/Potomac district ranger Jon Morgan about the proposed Grassy Ridge project. FOB and the Center are primarily concerned with the proposed project’s impacts to West Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel (WVNFS)and their habitat. First, the project’s proposal to clear […]
