CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – The Guardians of the West Fork Watershed marked their 25th anniversary with a speaker series at the Waldomore in downtown Clarksburg Tuesday night, highlighting ongoing efforts to restore and protect the West Fork River and its tributaries.
The event focused on a quarter-century of work aimed at cleaning up streams affected by pollution and promoting recreational opportunities throughout the watershed. Senior Research Scientist Mel Shafer of the West Virginia Water Research Institute outlined the long-term environmental damage caused by abandoned mine drainage and other sources of contamination affecting the West Fork River and waterways across the region. She also detailed current mitigation strategies designed to reduce pollutants and improve water quality.
“We’ve built seven passive treatment systems within the watershed working with the Guardians of the West Fork, and it’s slowly, you know, one treatment system at a time, and then a lot of partnerships between landowners, the Guardians of the West Fork, state government, federal government. So, it really takes a community to clean up the watershed,” Shafer said.
During the program, organizers recognized landowners who have allowed portions of their property to be used for wetland and pond treatment systems that help filter contaminated runoff. Volunteers involved in the Lambert Run restoration project were also honored. Officials said that effort required years of planning, regular water testing, and coordination among landowners, contractors, and staff from the West Virginia Water Research Institute.
The West Fork River Watershed includes 881 square miles, stretching from the river’s mouth at Fairmont into Rock Cave. It includes most of Harrison and Lewis counties and parts of Marion, Taylor, Barbour, and Upshur counties.
“I feel like a lot of people don’t know what’s going on in their watershed. So, to be able to come out and speak to the public and kind of spread that message is really important,” Shafer said. “The more people know, the more they want to get involved, so if everything is happening behind the closed doors then, you know, they don’t know about it and can’t get involved.”
Watershed officials emphasized that surface water and stormwater runoff within the watershed ultimately drain into downstream bodies of water, making upstream activities critical to overall water quality. They said major challenges in the West Fork and its creeks include fecal coliform contamination from sewage and pasture runoff, as well as iron-laden sediment linked to dirt roads, oil and gas drilling, urban runoff, agriculture, stream bank erosion, and abandoned mines.
“Acid mine drainage was peopbably the thing causing most of the issues. As we clean up the acid mine drainage, there’s going to be other problems that start to emerge like bacteria, the sewage, and whatnot. Acid mine drainage kind of acts like a sterilizer and kills off all that bacteria so as we clean that up, cleaning up bacteria is going to be the next big project, in the West Fork,” Shafer stated. “Now that the stream is coming back to life people actually want to go and play in it right, so now there is boat ramps being built and kayak tours, and there’s groups forming that go out together.”
Founded in 1997 and incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2002, the Guardians of the West Fork Watershed continue to oversee water quality initiatives and promote public use of the river for fishing, swimming, and paddling. The group has maintained its Lambert Run mitigation project in northern Harrison County since its creation.
In 2014, the organization launched the West Fork Water Trail as part of the statewide Flatwater Paddling project. It began hosting the annual Float the Fork paddle in 2018. In 2023, they introduced weekly spring and summer paddles at Veterans Memorial Park to further encourage community engagement with the river.