NPS director makes southern West Virginia visit

Apr. 6—National Park Service Director Chuck Sams continued familiarizing himself with the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve from a front row seat on Tuesday.

"The last time I was in West Virginia for any significant time was over 30 years ago, and I was invited out by their superintendent (Charles Sellars) to come and join the celebration of the acquisition of Irish Mountain (an April 3 ceremony at Sandstone)," Sams said Tuesday during a hike on NPS land to view an old mine portal. "But I was also able to tour most of the 53 miles that are part of the national park and preserve, and it was an opportunity to see the work that the staff do first-hand in ensuring that people have a safe place to recreate and learn history."

Of the particular project which was explored Tuesday, Sams said, "Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that passed last year, the Biden/Harris administration assured the funding was there to deal with a number of abandoned mines and wells across the United States. The National Park Service has several thousand abandoned mines and wells. To take care of the 10 percent of those that are most critical, such as this one behind me, to make sure that it's protected from folks where the public safety issues are handled, $140,000 (will be dedicated) to this particular mine shaft and protect it while also allowing for an opening so bats can migrate in and out of this particular mine. I think that's why it's important to actually be here on the ground and do the hiking and actually see first-hand how the money (is being spent) so I can report back to Congress (concerning their investment)."

"We do have a number of projects that we're looking to build out a much stronger and better visitor experience," Sams added. He also mentioned other situations such as bringing in federal dollars to tie into work being done for a local water treatment plant project.

"A year ago I started a trek of visiting national parks, and I've visited 66 national parks," Sams said. "New River Gorge is very unique in the amount of recreational opportunity and the diversity of activities that happen here. There are several communities that are gateways into the National Park Service lands here that offer a cultural experience. The National Heritage Area that abuts this is also extremely important to us. So, I think people that come to New River Gorge have a number of places that they can stay, everywhere from a hotel to very remote camping areas, so that diversity of experience is extremely important."

Park Superintendent Charles Sellars said the pending project is critical as park officials strive to protect the area's cultural and natural resources.

"Obviously, this is a pretty extensive part of our history at New River with the coal mining industry and the remnants that remain from that," Sellars said. "Also because of that, it's creating a safety issue for our visitors, and we want to make sure it's something we're addressing as appropriately as we can."

The project leads to a trifecta of situations, as Sellars referenced Bryan Wender, the park's chief of natural resources, discussing. "We address the protection of the cultural resources by putting the gates up. We also protect the natural resources, because this is a little bit of new territory for us with the bats and how our environment here at New River Gorge can protect those bats (including those that are threatened or endangered). The third thing is going to be the safety of our visitors, ensuring that we're not allowing people to go inside these mines, because they are very dangerous."

Of the Sams visit, Sellars said, "I've had this conversation with Director Sams in the past that it's important that the director come out to the parks, and he's made it a concerted effort to get out to the parks. It's important for the staff to see the director in the park, and (the director) gets to see the challenges that we face every day, the erosion of our budget and erosion of the staff that comes along with that."

That's even more important on the heels of the 2020 redesignation of the former national river into a national park, Sellars stressed. The elevated status is obviously yielding more visitors, he said. "I don't know if you went into the (Canyon Rim) visitors center this morning, but for a Tuesday morning, it was rocking. And, to me, that's one of the wonderful things about this redesignation is that it brings a different visitor to the park" but also might draw them for longer stays in the region. "We want people to come here and spend a week and recreate here, and there are a lot of tremendous opportunities here."

Sellars said he welcomed Sams being in West Virginia. "For me, having the director here with our project we were wrapping up yesterday with The Conservation Fund is making sure we're showing our partners our appreciation for the work that they do. And, had The Conservation Fund not stepped and helped us acquire that piece of property, we would have had a good likelihood of losing that property."

Wender discussed the three open mine portals that "are dangerous to the public."

"Two of them have never been gated," he said. "They've been open since the mines were abandoned. The third one was actually gated in 1992, but it has since failed and it's easy for visitors to get behind the gate."

In addition to making the dangerous portals safer for the public, the project will pave the way to "keep imperiled bats safe," said Wender. That includes six species of imperiled bats, three which are listed under the Endangered Species Act. The underground mines provide important habitat for those bats, he noted.

The mine portal project itself involves going in and replacing two existing gates at Fayette Mine that have been vandalized, and gating one portal near Cunard that is still open.

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