Hurricane Mayor Scott Edwards leads a contingent of hikers on the Red/White Trail at Meeks Mountain Trails.
On Sunday, August 11, Mayor Scott Edwards organized a small group of hikers to come out and explore the Red/White Trail at Meeks Mountain Trails. Participants got a close up, firsthand look at a portion of the Meeks Mountain Trails system that will be destroyed if Appalachian Power follows through on plans to route power lines in the area. Edwards is hopeful that awareness of the consequences of a decision to proceed will result in voices being heard at meetings this week on Tuesday at Valley Park in Hurricane and on Wednesday at the Winfield Community Center.
The group met up at the trail-head steps behind the red barn at Hurricane City Park, and proceeded over the CSX tracks to the “bowl” area – a wide, flat hollow where a large shelter and informational signs have been built. During major events, the bowl becomes a place for people to gather, with food trucks and other amenities being set up on the property. Plans call for the construction of a pump track for cyclists in the bowl, as well as bathroom facilities.
The Meeks Mountain Trails lead off into the surrounding hills, comprising over thirty miles of paths of various difficulty. There are four major trails – Red/White, Green/White, Pink/Purple, and Blue/Gold, as well as shorter trails which branch off from the main paths. The Red/White Trail, which was chosen by the Mayor for Sunday’s walk, is three miles long and is the trail of least difficulty. Several bikers passed by the group during their walk, an example of how the trails are enjoyed by hikers and cyclists alike.
If Appalachian’s lines were to destroy a wetland habitat, the company would be required to create a replacement habitat. In the instance of Meeks Mountain Trails, a system created for the benefit of humanity, there is no replacement requirement. If there were such a requirement, the cost to AEP would be very high. The Meeks Mountain Trails wind through 600 acres. Tracts of land of that size are few and far between in the Teays Valley area. The cost of replacement land would be in the millions of dollars. The volunteer labor which created the trails was free. The cost of paid labor to recreate the trails is estimated to run between $1.5 to $1.7 million.
After the awareness hike, Edwards posted the following: “Appalachian Power, you have a choice to make. You’re about to leave a legacy in Hurricane that will define how your company is viewed. You can decide to route your new right of ways over parts of Meeks Mountain Trails, sticking with your current engineering plans, and steal from the community its crown jewel.
“Or……you can announce publicly at the Tuesday meeting that AEP recognizes the significant place these trails occupy in our community and commits to finding a different routing that doesn’t affect a single inch of trail. The cheers from the hundreds of attendees would be deafening!!!!
“Your spokespeople have claimed decisions have not been made regarding the final routing. In engineering terms, that tells me you have a basic project scope and that detailed engineering based on public sentiment still must be performed before construction can begin. AEP reported over $1,000,000,000 (billion) USD in profit last fiscal year. Let’s say for argument sake that redoing basic engineering to reroute fully around MMT would cost $5 million. That comes to 0.5 percent of 2022/23 reported profit. Is the damage that AEP would do to its reputation & to our community with $5 million dollars to your decisions makers?
“Your decision makers have the ability to make that the commitment at our meeting on Tuesday to fully reroute your rights of way and show that AEP is willing to provide the valley with reliable power while preserving our trails and our community. If I were your decision makers, that second version would be the legacy I’d want to leave…”
The Breeze will publish AEP’s response when it is made available.
