Country Roads, Take Me Home
On September 15, 2011, my fellow commissioners and I made a trip to Wetzel County to see first-hand the impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling. We saw much, and spoke with several citizens. I first shared some of my impressions with the approximately 150 people in attendance at the Pocahontas County Commission meeting of September 20, wherein Eight Rivers Council delivered to us a petition of some 621 signatures asking us, the Pocahontas County Commission, to work toward a moratorium or ban on this kind of drilling activity in Pocahontas County.
In this series of blogs, I want to share with you in writing my many impressions and concerns that arose during, and as a result of, our Wetzel County trip. Today, I want to talk about roads. Country roads.
Our drive to Wetzel County took a few hours. We arrived near the head of Brock Ridge Road and met up with citizens Rose Baker and Bill Hughes, members of the Wetzel County Action Group. From there, we headed up Brock Ridge Road, and as the name suggests, this route goes up into the ridge line vistas of Wetzel County.
Brock Ridge Road is like many in Pocahontas County. One lane, dirt and gravel, and narrow. Some of our roads that are similar in size and beauty are, in the north say, Sunset Road, Sitlington Run Road, Back Mountain Road, Wesley Chapel Road, Buffalo Mountain Road, Old Pike Road, and Sheets Road. In the middle of Pocahontas County, Fairview Road and Back Mountain Road toward Edray, Woodrow Road, and Jerico Road are fine examples. In the south, Steven Hole Run Road, Seebert Road, Denmar Road, and Lobelia Road stand out. I am sure that in reading this list, many special roads will spring to your mind as well.
Throughout the day, we encountered and managed our way past many tractor trailers on our drive along Brock Ridge Road and adjoining roads. The first phase of Marcellus Shale drilling in Wetzel County began in 2007 and was completed sometime last year. Residents reported that truck traffic is down from many hundreds per day to tens per day, as the majority of Chesapeake's truck fleet is presently redeployed to areas in Ohio to "hold leases" before they expire. The first phase in Wetzel County resulted in some 33 well pads, several compressor stations, and 40ft-60ft wide pipeline paths. When the first phase of drilling is completed in Ohio, residents were told that the truck fleet will return to Wetzel County, WV for another multi-year round of new well drilling.
Immediately apparent to me was the industrial scale with which Wetzel County roads have been retasked. As we drove, I began to visualize this kind of industrial trucking activity on our Pocahontas County roads. Many thousands of truck trips accompany the activity of establishing a gas drilling field. It is incongruous to anything we have seen to imagine such industrial inundation of Pocahontas County country roads. It was clear to me, undeniable in truth: should drilling come to Pocahontas County, our roads will be jammed and broken.
In Wetzel County, the WVDOH has reassigned maintenance and management of the roads used by Chesapeake to the companies themselves. For Wetzel, this means that it is Chesapeake, not WVDOH, who is responsible for plowing, snow removal, etc. On the one hand, this seems like a responsible thing to place upon the companies. Indeed, monies for the maintenance should come from the companies. But on the other hand, this effectively gives up control and "ownership" of public roads to private entities, putting the priority of everyday and lifelong citizen traffic as secondary to that of truck traffic. In short, I believe that every "country drive" on Wetzel County's roads has become an "industrial park drive" instead. This will be Pocahontas County's fate should drilling come.
We are accustomed to logging trucks on our roads daily. Usually we know and recognize the people driving them, and we wave to each other kindly. To be clear, the tanker and equipment trucks utilized in this kind of drilling are necessarily larger, and are much greater in number than logging trucks. Mostly, the drivers are not locals, and are unfamiliar with our winding and hilly conditions. This has resulted in a great number of accidents in Wetzel and an overburden to county law enforcement and infrastructure. Should drilling come, we will have to adapt.
We are accustomed to homes that rest quietly in a clearing or hill just off the side of a country road. Should drilling come, "rest" and "quietly" are two ideas we will have to forgo. In particular, we drove past an idyllic residence, a small white house with green and white metal awnings, a small yard, sitting atop a very lovely hill-top clearing. The road was, by all appearances, this family's driveway, although it did continue on past as a right-of-way to a few other residences.
This lovely home is reminiscent of any that we adore on a country drive through Pocahontas County. This lovely home suffered over two years of continuous industrial truck caravans, not 30 feet distant from the porch steps.
After the long day of driving along what used to be unspoiled vistas, after having seen well pad upon well pad, wash-out upon wash-out, the experience calls to song within me:
Country Roads, Take Me Home,
To the Place Where I Belong.
How dangerously close this refrain is to being lost. Sing, Pocahontas County, sing.
To be continued.
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David M. Fleming, President
Pocahontas County Commission