Press Release

October 22, 2007

Contacts:
Brooks Bird Club, Carl Slater, Administrator, 304-232-1650
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Hugh Rogers, President, 304-636-2662.
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Vivian Stockman, 304-360-1979

Three Environmental Groups Celebrate Combined 135 Years

Three West Virginia environmental groups will celebrate anniversaries the weekend of October 26-28. They are the Brooks Bird Club (75 years), the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (40 years) and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (20 years.)

The Brooks Bird Club will celebrate its 75th anniversary, partnering with Oglebay Institute, at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, West Virginia. Guest speakers will include Chandler Robbins, a veteran BBC member and recently retired leader at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. He was a senior author of Birds of North America.

A memorial bird walk along the Brooks Nature Trail in memory of A.B. Brooks is scheduled Saturday. Brooks became the first staff naturalist for Oglebay Institute at Oglebay Park in 1932. Among his most devoted followers were the founders of the BBC who decided at their first meeting to name the club after A.B. Brooks. Later, academic papers will be presented on a variety of topics, including owls, mushrooms, wrens, and native plants. An anniversary banquet will feature Kenn Kaufman, field editor for Audubon Magazine and a regular contributor to Bird Watcher’s Digest and numerous other birding magazines. Two of his books, A Field Guide to Advanced Birding and Lives of North American Birds are now considered standard references for birders. In 2000, Houghton Mifflin Company launched his new field guide series, Kaufman Focus Guides.

The Brooks Bird Club, founded in 1932 has been at the forefront of environmental education and research throughout West Virginia, and has grown into one of the country’s most respected nature organizations. “Not only do members contribute valuable information on the outdoor world, they do so while having the time of their lives among close colleagues and friends” Carl Slater, Administrator of the club added. Additional information is available at brooksbirdclub.org.

The West Virginia Highlands Conservancy will celebrate its 40th anniversary as one of the most active environmental groups in the state at the Cheat Mountain Club near Cheat Bridge, WV. Focusing primarily on the Highlands region, defined approximately as the Monongahela National Forest region, the Highlands Conservancy led the crusade to establish the state’s first Wilderness areas, Dolly Sods, Otter Creek and Cranberry, and remains active in lobbying for additional areas. It has fought high-rise dams on many free-flowing rivers, opposed the Davis Power Project in Canaan Valley, now preserved as a National Wildlife Refuge, and is currently active in the debate over wind farm developments on mountain ridgetops. Its most sustained campaign has focused on the effects of mining, most recently mountaintop removal mining, in which the Highlands Conservancy has been a major plaintiff in legal actions to regulate valley fills and prevent stream degradation.

Formed in 1967 as a broad coalition of outdoor enthusiasts, the Highlands Conservancy has consistently tackled multiple issues and is widely known for its monthly newspaper, The Highlands Voice. One of its founding organizational members, and long-time supporters, was the Brooks Bird Club. The Conservancy has often joined forces with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, especially on mining issues.

Many past leaders will be in attendance. A newly released book, Fighting to Protect the Highlands, published by Pocahontas Press, chronicles the Conservancy's past forty years. For additional information, visit wvhighlands.org.

The third group celebrating thist weekend is the Huntington-based Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. OVEC formed in 1987 to fight a huge toxic waste incinerator planned for an already polluted, low-income community; OVEC stopped the incinerator. In 1997, OVEC prevented the construction of what would have been the largest dioxin producing pulp and paper mill on the continent. In 1998, after OVEC members applied eleven years of unrelenting pressure on environmental regulators and politicians, the U.S. Justice Department leveled the largest fine in its history ($38.5 million) against Ashland Oil, requiring that they bring all their U.S. refineries into compliance with environmental
regulations.

Building organized citizen power is essential to all of OVEC's work and successes, and the group's greatest strength is its demonstrated ability to involve hundreds of volunteers in working to improve West Virginia's environmental and political landscape. OVEC's volunteers and staff currently focus on ending mountaintop removal mining, ending the underground injection of coal slurry and establishing Clean Elections guidelines in our state.

At its 20th anniversary, OVEC members will celebrate the group's long list of successes with awards, live music from talented OVEC members and a potluck supper at a park near Huntington.