Mining Firm Donates Land to State DNR

kward@wvgazette.com

Nearly 1,000 acres of land near the Dolly Sods Wilderness will be protected as a public wildlife management area, state officials announced Friday.

Land for the Dobbins Slashing Bog Wildlife Area was given to the state by Buffalo Coal Co. and Western Pocahontas Properties to compensate for damage from a new strip mine proposed for Grant County.

Gov. Joe Manchin joined various state officials in announcing the deal during a ceremony at the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Charleston headquarters.

DEP Secretary Stephanie Timmermeyer said the event was an opportunity to highlight “the environmental stewardship of the state’s extractive industries.”

“I’ve always said that economic development and environmental protection can co-exist,” Manchin said. “There is a balance to be had.”

Manchin and Timmermeyer joined with Frank Jezioro, director of the state Division of Natural Resources, for a ceremonial signing of an agreement that had actually been signed more than two weeks ago.

“One of West Virginia’s treasures is protected,” Timmermeyer said.

Several dozen DEP employees filled chairs in a training room at the agency’s headquarters. A slide show of photographs flashed on a screen behind the podium.

Under the agreement, the DNR will manage the 965-acre tract in the headwaters of Red Creek, a native trout stream. The property is northwest from Bear Rocks in Dolly Sods and southeast of Canaan Valley.

The area is primarily a bog, and is home to at least five rare plant species and one rare animal, according to the DNR.

According to a West Virginia University report, the area is named for the Dobbins family. The word “slashing” is in the name because the area was at one time a red spruce forest. In some places, the stumps of burned out red spruce protrude, “blackened and ghostly looking,” according to the WVU report.

Bayard-based Buffalo Coal agreed to donate the land to win DEP approval of a permit for its proposed C-1 North strip mine.

In June 2003, Buffalo proposed to strip more than 300 acres between Stony River Dam and Mount Storm Lake in Grant County.

The company dropped part of the permit to cut in half the acres of wetlands that would be damaged, to about 33 acres, said Ken Politan, an assistant director at the DEP Division of Mining and Reclamation.

To mitigate those impacts, the company will build 12 acres of wetlands on its mine site and another acre of wetlands along an access road that leads to Dobbins Slashing Bog, according to the two- page agreement signed July 13.

Along with donating the bog property, Buffalo Coal will also pay up to $55,000 to fund lime treatments to cure acid mine drainage in Red Creek, the agreement says.

The treatment will help clean up the stream, which is on the DEP’s list of West Virginia’s most polluted waterways.

To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348- 1702.