Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelback
West Virginia is 24,000 square miles! There's a lot more there than lopped-off hillsides, poisoned rivers and bombed-out towns and the like.
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Of course no state has uniform characteristics statewide, but yeah, WV is absolutely characterized by lopped-off hillsides, poisoned rivers/air and bombed-out towns.
No state has been as denuded from mining as WV. No state has had massive water quality issues as WV (entire metros had no drinking water a few years ago). WV has some of the worst air quality in the U.S., and Charleston and Parkersburg (two of the largest cities) have epic poisoned air/water. Watch the film Dark Waters, which is based on Dupont's insane poisoning of WV over decades. I wouldn't allow my child to stay in such a town for even a week, given the air quality from chemical plants. I'd be concerned about drinking from any municipal water system, statewide.
And WV's population is smaller than in the Great Depression. No state has been as hollowed-out, so there are bombed-out towns everywhere.
Of course that doesn't mean there aren't pristine corners and quaint towns. New River Gorge looks amazing, and the eastern mountain sections look pretty wild. But WV will have difficulty marketing itself as "natural" when there are so many unnatural incursions. Many people I know won't hike/camp in PA given the fracking destruction, but WV is like 100x less regulated.