I was born up on high ground we're the cheat river when you can we're in the O coma fishing trap waters of cheap River Watershed originates deep in the Managua halen National Forest.

There are five forks trip main tributaries that come together.

But the deepest one Shavers Fork originates just outside of snowshoe West Virginia.

Those forks flow through the Mon forest which is largely protected really healthy.

And they join right around Parsons, West Virginia, which is in Tucker County.

Want to interesting tidbit about the cheetahs that flows north so we often have people trying to turn the map to figure out you know, what direction the rivers going so the river that the trips meet around Parsons continue flowing north into Preston County.

And then there is a small watershed that drains out of Pennsylvania called Quebec Ron, that meets with the Big Sandy which drains into the lower end of the cheap Canyon string.

And right behind me is the start of the cheat canyon where the river really narrows and flows about 12 miles of classified world class whitewater till we get to cheat lake where we do have a flow impeding dam.

So cheat Lake is a reservoir that is really right at the bottom of the watershed.

And then just a little bit beyond cheat Lake.

The river meets the Managua hayleigh and flows towards Pittsburgh.

The cheat River watershed has always been a wild place.

In the 1800s, considerable changes to the landscape began.

Railroads, logging, tanneries, coal mining and iron ore industries popped up throughout the watershed from its headwaters to mouth as people found their way in they discovered great value in the cheats natural resources, which they managed to remove, primarily when the railroads were established nerves.

By the 1930s coal mining was approaching its peak, while bringing prosperity to many communities severe long lasting damage was done to many streams and the cheap watershed.

AMD or acid mine drainage was prevalent throughout the upper Freeport coal seam because the overburden was made of Pyretic material, pyrite aka fool's gold.

All you need to do to create acid mine drainage is exposed that pyrite to air and water so you have pyrite plus water plus air and you create sulfuric acid and hydrogen ions.

The sulfuric acid is of course, what we associate with the burning of the of the eyes, but those hydrogen ions also drop the pH of the water.

So you essentially get acid plus metals.

What does that what does acid mine drainage actually do to impair the health of rivers?

Well, the pH is low.

So if you think about membranes of fish or the bugs that live there, it essentially eats away their exercise exoskeleton, which is typically made of calcium.

So pilgrim baits couldn't live in this type of water.

The only way we would know that they were here is to see a red skeleton.

The cheat was West Virginia's first commercially rafted River.

Every season we saw 10s of 1000s of paddlers paddling to the cheat Canyon.

So in the spring of 1994, there was still an active mining operation, not far from where we are now along muddy creek that was actively mining coal, and they got a little creative.

And they had drilled a essentially a drainage hole borehole that went from their mind complex to an abandoned mine complex.

And they did that because they were able to then make their polluted water disappear and then they didn't have to treat it.

So that will worked for a while, until that large space filled up with water.

And once that, that underground mine filled up with water, there was no place for the pollution to go.

So in that very wet spring of 1994 so it blew out the side of the hill and pour 10s of 1000s of gallons of highly, highly concentrated acid mine drainage into muddy creek.

The water was bright orange, full of metal full of iron.

And once that water reached the cheap Canyon, it essentially stained all of the rocks to the cheek Canyon left, what can only be described as like a bathtub ring of sludge along the rocks.

And anything that was still alive in the river was was was killed by that, that blowout.

So the folks, some of the folks living living locally, teamed up with paddlers and said like this is enough, this is not okay.

We can't have our rivers running red and fish dying and you know, paddlers having to bring water bottles to flush their eyes out because the water is actually stinging the, the membranes of their eyes, it was so acidic, you know, the pH scale goes from one to 14.

And you want your water to be as seven which is neutral.

This water is you know less than three, we're talking about the the pH of vinegar is how bad it was.

If the pH changes from seven to six, that's an increase in acidity 10 times, if it decreases from seven to five, that's a decrease in acidity of 100 times.

If it changes from seven to four, that's 1000 times increase in the sins.

So we're going to talk about brook trout.

They can tolerate a little lower pH than a lot of other fish.

They can tolerate something down to maybe five and a half.

And that wouldn't be a real great population.

But six to seven would be a good pH for brook trout.

muddy creek was probably two or three the organization came together round really 9495 And it started with just volunteers.

You know, there was no paid staff.

The first money that the group ever raised was from a trash cleanup they went out and they got gathered scrap metal, they took it to the dump and that you know 20 Some bucks lived in a mason jar on our one of our founders refrigerators for a year until they could figure out how to form a 501 C three and what to do with it.

These founders the people in the beginning who banded together, people like Dave Bassett, dubwise, Michael Messer, Troy tensional, and many other locals that live right in Ruth Belle paddle makers like Jimmy Schneider boat builders like the salami cheese, they came together not only because this impacted their their livelihood, but this was in their backyard was a place that they spent time and it was their home.

As they were gathering information and understanding the impacts to the cheat more.

We quickly learned that we needed everybody's help.

We needed all hands on deck.

Nonprofits like Friends of the cheat West Virginia rivers coalition American Whitewater, to government, county government state government agencies from Office of Surface Mining to the West Virginia DEP and DNR, our university partners and industry notably anchor energy, anchor energy funded Friends of the cheat's very first acid mine drainage treatment project on greens run on the middle fork of blood lagoon, and that project was the first.

Following that project, we finally had some government money available to work on the problem being the squeaky wheel brought attention from other groups that took different approaches than friends of the cheap.

And as a result of everybody's collective effort, we now have a $10 million treatment plant on muddy creek that has restored the fishery of you know, a, arguably one of the most degraded watersheds in the country.

The North Fork railroad refuse project that was constructed several years ago, is one of our our really Keystone projects.

So we're at the beginning of our railroad refuse treatment site.

As the water moves down the hill, it actually can lose some of its iron concentrations.

It actually will go around this dogleg here, which is kind of a term for our open limestone channel where it's curving around.

And then the reason that we wanted this is because we wanted to maximize the amount of open limestone channels so that we're increasing the amount of limestone interacting with this mined water before it reaches the limestone leach beds.

So once it makes it to the leach bed, it leeches its way through some additional limestone.

Once that vault is full, it triggers a flush, and then it makes its way to the settling pond.

At the settling pond.

Usually, now the pH is about five, when that's where you're seeing the aluminum precipitate out, that's what causes that kind of aqua color.

And then from there, the water makes its way to this additional pond.

This is our mushroom compost pond.

This is kind of a new technology for FOC.

And there are certain microbes in the mushroom compost that help improve the water quality further and help these metals continue to fall out.

From here, it goes to the wetland, which is kind of our polishing component.

So any remaining metals or sediment is kept in the wetland and sequestered before it makes its way to the street.

All right, we're going to test the pH of our wetland, which is our final component of our treatment system, I'm just going to set the probe in.

And this site actually has pretty good system out pH.

At this point, our water quality is showing that we are ph circumneutral.

Meaning we're often above seven with our effluent, which is good, we're actually producing alkalinity that will further improve Northfork of greens, Ron and our metals are often non detect or zero.

important improvement is when the DNR does fish surveys at Area different areas on the watershed, usually above and below potential sources of pollution.

And so when we measure the number of fish, a number of species of fish, the size of the fish, we can make comparisons below sources of acid mine drainage, and see how that affects the fish population.

And when we've done this, and I've done this extensively on the cheap River and on the Tigard River, it's a very, very obvious reduction in fish populations below sources of acid mine drainage water quality monitoring is foundational to everything Friends of the cheap does, we have to collect data to understand what's happening in our rivers and streams to assess what the problems are and what we should do.

One of the first things that organization did was invest in equipment, and train volunteers to get out in the water set and collect this data.

Now we have a professionally trained staff, and a robust mapping and monitoring program that not only samples water quality for acid mine drainage, but we're also looking at other impairments throughout the watershed, including bacteria, sediment temperature, we need data.

A good measure of the total diversity in the watershed is the number of species of fish that we find.

And so that's been well documented.

Now, we're seeing probably 40 species of minnows and darners and feet lake that we had never seen before.

For many years, friends, little cheat staff stumped through streams, not finding anything, I mean, not even a water strider on the surface.

So to be able to see fish return to streams like north fork or greens run.

And to see trout at the mouth of muddy creek and the cheat is the most rewarding part I think of our job.

One thing that we had friends that he tried to emphasize is the importance that everything is connected everything down to your little stream bugs, your benthic macroinvertebrates all the way up to the bald eagle are your megafauna is connected through the ecosystem.

And really, we try to emphasize the importance of these small organisms and what they mean in the watershed and how they can affect our species at the top of the food chain.

So we tend to monitor some of these species that can be indicators of good or bad water quality depending on their presence or absence.

One of those is the Eastern Hellbender which is to flow Long salamander native to North America.

They're they're pretty much gentle giants and spend most of their lives under rocks in the stream, and therefore are pretty good indications of good water quality when they're present in a system.

So friends of the cheat recently conducted our first environmental DNA monitoring efforts this fall to determine where these species may be present or absent in the cheat River watershed.

Two interesting things we've learned from this study, one Hellbenders were detected in areas that were historically dead for aquatic species, specifically the section from Roseburg to Albright.

This is just one more example of a successful restoration of the cheap river for the mainstem.

To be able to support a pollution sensitive species like the Hellbender is an immense achievement.

The Albright power dam was built in 1952 to feed the coal fired power plants cooling towers.

Not only is the Albright power dam, a barrier for paddlers, it is also one for fish and other animals that live in the stream.

Because of the efforts of many partners to improve the cheat river over the decades, pollution sensitive sportfish such as walleye and small mouth bass are returning.

But now the dam blocks the walleyes way upstream to river towns such as Roseburg and Parsons.

They shut down the power plant, and now it's just sitting there as a relic.

The dam literally has no damn purpose, it is just in the way.

So now, as we work to try and remove that dam, we're looking at species like not only trout, but species like Hellbender, and even potentially introducing freshwater mussels back into the cheap.

They also filter the water.

So once you get mussels re reestablished, you're you're introducing a natural, kind of pollution abatement strategy there.

So we're super excited.

I mean, if you would have told the founders 26 years ago that we'd be talking about freshwater mussels and Hellbenders they probably would have thought you were crazy, because 25 years ago, the river was dead, you couldn't pull out.

You couldn't pull a fish out of this river.

If you'd sat there for weeks.

I mean, there was nothing living in there.

Lick run is a small yet immensely impactful tributary of the cheat River.

The lick run watershed drains an area less than five square miles containing 22 known acid mine drainage discharges entirely from Abandoned Mine Land.

The worst abandoned mine lands in this drainage is the lick run portals and other worldly site were damaged from a vast underground mining complex exposes itself at the surface.

The toxic waters emanating from the mind portals enter lick run from both sides of this creek, sending 500 gallons of acidic water downstream every minute.

A mile and a half downstream the severely polluted waters entered mixed with the cheat River.

In recent years, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection office of abandoned mine lands and reclamation and completed a partial land reclamation at the site.

improving water quality through AMD remediation was not included in this work.

Every year like run contributes nearly 5 million pounds of acidity to the cheat and hundreds of tons of toxic metals.

It is one of the most severely concentrated sources of acid mine drainage ship the cheat River watershed.

Estimates for a lick run portal treatment system range from three to 5 million not including annual operations and maintenance costs.

FOC is committed to bringing this massive project to fruition.

A watershed is more than the rivers and streams that crossed the landscape a watershed includes the people that live there.

So friends that she has found ourselves not just working for the river but working for the community and as such, we found ourselves leading essentially economic development projects.

The cheat River Rail Trail it's going to be about eight miles of rail trail along the cheat River.

This project was funded by the West Virginia DEP AML pilot program where this railtrail is is kind of a really scenic section is actually a scenic byway route 72 dovetailing with that is another project we have with the rail trail and that'll be a trailhead and that is another massive amount of money to come into for us to help build out again the economic development surrounding outdoor recreation Trailhead plenty of parking think over 40 cars be able to park there and then provide foot travel non motorized and travel along the trail to the along the banks of the cheat so you can scamper down the trail get to your favorite fishing hole, you can ride your bike, you can view all the rapids you can get in the water and swim in a safe way As you may have bathrooms in ability to park your car, leave for the day and enjoy the river on the trail.

So those again combined, that's over $4 million worth of construction projects and infrastructure projects In Preston County along the river.

So that brings jobs that brings local, you know, opportunity for outfits to work.

And then with with that comes people and people are going to buy things.

They're going to buy bikes, they're going to buy food, they're going to buy ice cream at the ice cream shop, you build it and they come.

We have the Allegheny trail that runs through West Virginia, it's 330 miles.

It starts up at the Mason Dixon Line and then goes south to the border of Virginia, we're actually will meet the Appalachian Trail.

And friends of the cheat recently became a steward of the Allegheny trail, we have a 28 mile section that runs from again Mason Dixon Line.

Down here to around Albright is where we're, we're, we're taking care of it and we host trail groups to come and do trail work.

The popular section here is the cheap Canyon, it's about 10 miles of wilderness.

Folks like to get in there and backpack and hike and just explore nature at its best.

As we've moved forward with building our own recreation infrastructure, the rail trail paddling access the trailhead, we found ourselves really at the tip of the spear leading economic development initiatives around outdoor recreation.

And as such, friends of the CI in partnership with downstream strategies is working to build out the state's first non motorized trail network modeled after the Hatfield McCoy trail system in southern West Virginia.

But this is for non motorized trails, what's that mean?

The best for bikes and the best for boats.

And we're going to see in coming years, a large investment.

I've been told by tourism professionals, we're going to be making actually the largest investment in tourism, infrastructure and marketing that North Central West Virginia has ever seen as part of this project.

There's a lot to be said about friends of the chief annual fundraiser, the cheat river festival.

We had our first one in 1994, the same year that the organization formed.

And it has been a huge outreach event by the banks of the beautiful cheap river ever since each year three to 4000 people visit this site on the first weekend of May to celebrate the mighty cheat River.

People come in from all over the world, it is the kickoff to the summer paddling season.

The children festival is really integral to FSCS budget yearly budget, it can raise up to 40% of our unrestricted fundraising.

We don't only need jobs, but we need a place where people want to live.

And people want to live, where there are nice things to do outside and where they have a community that they feel part of.

And that's what friends the cheat has, has grown.

No, maybe not intentionally, but naturally organically through events like cheat fest where we have folks gathered together along the river to celebrate.

And that brings hope.

The cheat is, you know, my son's cliche, but it's an it's an inspirational story.

A river that was dead in my lifetime is back.

You know, we didn't have we didn't have fish, no one wanted to go into the cheap Canyon.

And now people are are coming back.

So we want to hold that up as an example that truly a committed group of people who picked up a bunch of scrap metal and had $20 in a mason jar on top of a fridge can implement change, real change, lasting change.

And I think that human capital, and that those kinds of intangible things, we can't necessarily measure that you can measure pH you can collect fish, but how do you measure the morale?

You know, how do you measure inspiring other people you know, friends have Decker's friends of Blackwater, all these other groups just in our region and nationally.

You know, not only have we restored water quality but habitat I mean, make a news for all of these success we've had and by success, I mean the river right the river is healthier that the species are back things are improving, but we do see setbacks.

We do have setbacks.

The incident that happened on muddy creek last year we saw a big surge of very polluted acid mine drainage coming down the chain to the canyon, I mean it was was very reminiscent of 1994 people were upset people were concerned.

Now, the impact of that has been minimal.

But that really impacts kind of your resolve more than anything.

Cleaning up acid mine drainage isn't one and it's a marathon with a girl as long as there's pirated material we're gonna have AMD so you really have to be committed and you have to have thick skin.

You do have to be able to weather the storm and really dig your heels in this matters.

We're not keep up.

Trouble in this world, near foreign land