06/26/2026
West Virginia folk please get involved
I apologize, this will be very long. But if you can read and share I would be extremely grateful. ❤️
We were recently made aware of the proposed Valley North Project to run a new 765-kV transmission line through West Virginia to provide power to northern Virginia. To say I’m concerned would be an understatement.
Could somebody please explain why rural America is looked down upon by so many in urban areas, but we are simultaneously supposed to deal with all the negative infrastructure that allows cities to even exist? Big city folk talk about our gas guzzlers, our water usage, and how bad we are for the environment, meanwhile our farms and forests are cut up to power their cities while they get to feel good about how environmentally conscious they are.
One of the proposed paths appears to be literally in my backyard. Unless I’m interpreting it wrong, the path looks like it goes directly across the river we swim in and over that big beautiful hillside view that you guys are always so jealous of.
Let’s ignore the negative impacts to the people and our community for just a minute. Do y’all know what lives in that river and on that hillside?
Those hawks and eagles that kill my chickens? They hunt and nest over there.
The deer that eat my gardens? Their paths crisscross that entire hillside.
The coyotes I always worry will get our barn cats? They sing to each other from the hill to the valley.
The bears I am so scared of? We’ve watched a sow quietly raise her babies in those woods for years.
All those “pests” that make farming so hard for me live in those woods and you’d think I’d be happy at the idea of them being gone…but I will choose them over this power line every single time. They belong here. This is their home. They’re vital parts of this thriving ecosystem.
Speaking of thriving ecosystems, all the things I’ve happily documented as having population growth since we’ve lived here, what happens to them if this goes through? The whippoorwills that went from just one single solitary cry in the night to at least five different individuals calling, what happens to them? The frogs in the trees that scream so loudly it hurts your ears, where will they go? The bats, the turtles, the lightning bugs, the pollinators…what will this do to them?
I don’t want to leave my farm because this is my ancestral land. My great great great grandparents helped grow the small community here by building a grain mill on that river in 1883, it’s the Mill part of the farm name. If it comes down to it though, as much as I don’t want to, I can leave here. The wildlife I share this land with however cannot just relocate, so it feels like I should speak for them more than my farm. 🤷🏻♀️
City folk, you can’t claim to care about wildlife and then support something like this. “Plant for Pollinators”, “Protect the Animals”, “Keep Our Rivers Clean” “Save the Earth”…you can’t just shout catchy slogans and think your duty to the earth is done. I know rural and urban tend to butt heads, but whether you like us country bumpkins or not, you have to stand with us and say no to this stuff. It is not ok to destroy healthy thriving ecosystems to power cities located hundreds of miles away.
Country folk, at some point we have to say enough is enough. The people in charge don’t get to blame us for climate issues while they actively destroy the natural world we manage to coexist with. I know we tend to just wanna be left alone and pray it doesn’t ever happen in our own backyard, but at some point it will be all of our backyards. We can’t keep letting them come in and devalue our communities by destroying our natural areas. If we truly believe we are stewards of this land, at some point we have to fight for it. It’s not enough to just use natural methods and support the ecosystems around us. At some point, we have to tell them no and mean it.
I have no idea what will come of this. I don’t know if Dominion Energy, FirstEnergy and Transource Energy will come up with something different if enough of us tell them no. I don’t know if they’ll just stick it in whatever community doesn’t fight back hard enough. I just don’t know what will happen. But I would appreciate it if you could share this and possibly sign the petition I’ll include in the comments.
I will also post meeting dates and locations in the comments for those of you wanting to go in person. WV folks, please go. Wild and wonderful is literally our thing. We can’t let them take that from us. Mountaineers are always free and we need to show them what that freedom means to us 💙💛
