The following was submitted by the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.
As members of the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, we love clean water, fresh air, and wild forests. We work hard to protect the natural resources we cherish, like our Potomac Highlands, the Monongahela National Forest, the long Ohio Riverfront, the Blackwater Canyon, our native brook trout streams, and much more. We also work to fight for justice in communities we serve, from retiring old, expensive power plants that raise your electric bill, to fighting for clean water and adequate infrastructure to deliver safe water to your homes. We fight mountain top removal mining that destroys the health of our people, and defend the right to vote for the people who represent our communities. Our legislative team includes Chapter Director Honey May and Jim Kotcon, and we work in collaboration with WVEC to track legislation and keep our members involved.
What project(s) do you feel are most urgent or important to the WVV Sierra Club right now?
We are part of the Beyond Coal Campaign, which works closely with the Chapter on power plants, making it important to keep electric bills to a minimum. The Chapter is also working with many communities across the State on the natural resource key for all life. Clean Water. We believe that water is an issue everyone should be involved in.
What does the future of the WV Sierra Club look like?
As a small Chapter, having new active members is key to our survival. Our outings program helps with that by connecting people to the outdoors. People will protect a place that they have visited, so 
growing the outings leader team is beneficial. We need younger people to take on the fights for generations to come.
What makes this work personal to you?
I think that people join the Club for many reasons, whether it’s climate change or attacks on our rights to live freely, since “mountaineers are always free.” Freedom entails a responsibility to treat all humanity and nature in the way we want to be treated. Flooding will always be a priority for me because I was part of the “Dorothy flood” in 2001, which was caused by Mountain Top Removal mining. I saw my community almost destroyed, and nothing activates people more than seeing their community endangered.
To learn more about the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, visit https://www.sierraclub.org/west-virginia.
