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West Virginians Were Promised an Economic Revival. It Hasn’t Happened Yet.
The coal industry continues to decline. Natural gas isn’t bringing the prosperity it promised, and now the pandemic has wrecked the state’s economy.
by Ken Ward Jr. Oct. 29, 8 a.m. EDT
One year ago, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice promised business leaders that the state’s economy was on the verge of a boom. Continued growth in natural gas production was going to spark an industrial renaissance, bringing construction of a giant collection of spinoff factories.
Speaking to the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting, held as usual at the billionaire governor’s own luxury resort, The Greenbrier, Justice painted quite a picture of the land of plenty to come.
Processing plants, chemical manufacturing facilities and a whole host of “downstream” operations would soon start popping up. These developments would bring in $36 billion in capital investment and allow the state to create 100,000 new jobs from the decade-old boom in natural gas drilling, the governor said.
“Today, we’re on the launch pad to take off,” Justice said in August 2019.
Since then, it’s been hard to find a lot of evidence of progress toward the future Justice described, or much proof that the governor’s promises weren’t more of the same economic fairy tales West Virginians have heard for generations.
To be fair I think you do have to realize most of the country and world have struggled through 2020 from COVID and everything has pretty much stood still this year that was supposed to happen. Most expansions and developments just stopped and we can only hope next year is better.
This is something that will likely take the natural gas job market down even further. A regional power plant is looking to mix natural gas with hydrogen and then potentially switch to all hydrogen in the upcoming years. This would result in a zero emissions power plant. If successful, I imagine other power plants will follow suit. Natural gas will take a big nose dive if that happens and WV will have tourism to rely on as the main industry. Our leaders had better start planning for this now.
This is something that will likely take the natural gas job market down even further. A regional power plant is looking to mix natural gas with hydrogen and then potentially switch to all hydrogen in the upcoming years. This would result in a zero emissions power plant. If successful, I imagine other power plants will follow suit. Natural gas will take a big nose dive if that happens and WV will have tourism to rely on as the main industry. Our leaders had better start planning for this now.
With that possibility, seems like a good idea to finally finish Corridor H to further open up the the Potomac Highlands for expanded tourism. Along with expanding the skiing and recreational offerings at Canaan Valley, since Timberline still has an uncertain future.
It could also be a good time to explore the idea of expanding Mountain Stage and building it up to the same level as Austin City Limits.
West VA is a beautiful state, but it is going to be difficult to attract new industries given its long history of political corruption. Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide: The Sordid And Continuing History of Political Corruption in West Virginia by Loughry is a good place to start, that was written in 2006, the corruption has now reached into the State Supreme Court where all the justices were impeached.
I realize it’s a moot point now, but why didn’t more West Virginia coal miners unionize when they had the chance?
The Pro Publica includes this line that the governor promised the state: “chemical manufacturing facilities .” As if that’s a good thing! Sheesh! Come out of the dark ages, already!
While I can't stand the governor,its a little silly in 2020 to blame any governor in the country for things that 'didn't happen' this particular year.
Its also a bit silly to act like low paying,service industry 'tourism jobs',many of which are also seasonal, are a solution to replacing $50-$100k per year coal mining jobs....I don't know what will work but its easy to see what won't. I'm not against expanding tourism but it really doesn't provide many 'good paying' jobs.
I realize it’s a moot point now, but why didn’t more West Virginia coal miners unionize when they had the chance?
The Pro Publica includes this line that the governor promised the state: “chemical manufacturing facilities .” As if that’s a good thing! Sheesh! Come out of the dark ages, already!
In the 1930's and 1940's, UMWA memberships was around 500K. While that number is obviously much lower today, you have to remember how many jobs were lost to mechanization, the lower number of coal mines currently operating, and how many retired miners have passed away due to health issues.
Ok I've been consciously aware of the WV situation since the 1980's and it's all I've ever heard since then from dems and reps alike. My God this is nothing new. WV has been like this for decades and they were probably saying the same thing going back to at least the 1950's as well too.
WV has a land problem. There isn't enough cheap usable land here to produce any type of meaningful economic recovery. Our economy came from our land which primarily consisted of hills because we actually have very few mountains. Anyhow those hills had coal that people mined. Once mining was basically dying all that hill land is pretty much worthless for economic development. (In before anyone cries But What About the Tourism!) which makes about as much sense and dollars as telling unemployed miners to learn to code.
GEOGRAPHY IS DESTINY. WV is a poor landlocked and rugged terrain place and there just isn't much to work with or for here. I don't care what politician you support or what the agenda is. Facts are facts and WV outside of a few things here or there is not setup to have what's needed to become an economic engine.
Very few politicians outside of Byrd actually did much to generate economic activity here. I'm not much of a fan of him either but he did bring in the pork projects and probably was responsible for laying the foundation of a good but of what's going on in the north central part of the state right now.
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I'm not against expanding tourism but it really doesn't provide many 'good paying' jobs.
