>>ANNOUNCER: Promoting a healthy environment...
it's the air we breathe...
Clean, safe water...
Responsible management of our natural resources...
We project and restore
for a sustainable future...
environment matters
>>WOMAN: We wanted to have as little environmental impact
possible and be part of a sustainable food system so it's very important to us
to come up with a production method that spoke to all those things.
>>NARRATION: A two hundred-year-old family business with a 21st century attitude
is reintroducing a unique West Virginia product
to the world. Plus:
>>WOMAN: We've made tremendous progress in the last several weeks.
>>NARRATION: We'll visit a community garden project in one city that's bringing some relief to
a neighborhood
food desert. Hello everybody and welcome to another edition
of Environment Matters. I'm Greg Adolfson. >>KELLEY: and I'm Kelley Gillenwater.
When you think of West Virginia's best known mineral resource
you probably think coal... >>GREG: but that wasn't always the case. In fact, if you go back
to the mid-eighteen hundreds
West Virginia in the Kanawha Valley in particular was
actually largest salt producing region of the United States. Hundreds of wells
along the Kanawha River produced salt
on an industrial scale -- more than three million bushels each year...
>>KELLEY: Now one local family is reviving that tradition
in a much smaller and more environmentally friendly way
the DEP's Jake Glance joins us now with more on their story...
>>JAKE: Well Kelly, Greg, the J.Q. Dickinson salt works in Malden
produces sea salt which seems like pretty neat trick -- considering the lack
of beachfront property
in West Virginia. No, their salt comes from an ocean
trapped far beneath our feet from the outside it looks like a greenhouse
>>NARRATION: From the outside, it looks like a greenhouse,
but what's growing inside isn't flowers or vegetables
its crystals of salt. Inside the Sun houses salt brine fills these shallow trays
where it slowly
evaporates its really a
>>LEWIS PAYNE: It's really a three-step process. So you've got the evaporation
and then once this brine reaches a certain salinity level
we then move it to a separate -- another greenhouse
we spread the brine really thin out there
and then that's when you see the crystallization. So you got evaporation,
crystallization and then we process the salt.
>>NARRATION: From wellhead to finished product, the process takes about five weeks
it's a very hands-on process
and it can be pretty hot work, too. Afternoon temperatures
inside the Sun houses can reach 150 degrees in the summer.
>>MEGAN PARKER: The salt will crystallize in these beds
and usually in the morning when it's cooler we come out
and we harvest all the salt. We
scrape it all together and then we put it
into these flowerpots to drain
because we want it to be as dry as get it when we bring it inside. We do more drying inside
but this way we keep as much to the brine
and later the nigari in the same bed and so that we can
harvest that later as well and keep making more salt.
>>NARRATION: The well at J.Q. Dickinson's is about 350 feet deep.
That's much shallower than the 1000 to 1500 foot deep wells
drilled all along the river when the Kanawha Valley salt industry was
at its peak but its deep enough to tap the mineral richness that lies below
>>LEWIS: the source is actually from an ancient ocean. It's called the Iapetus Ocean.
It's anywhere from 400 to 600 million years old
and I think this source varies
depending on where you are in the Eastern part of the United States but you
can find it as
far north as Michigan. Probably comes down to
Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina... So it just so happens that its bowling here so
it's a little more prevalent
and so it's a very rich source.
>>NARRATION: and it's that source that makes this salt so special.
>>NANCY: I like to think of salts as
like wines from around the world. They give you an expression of the earth from which
they're grown
and our salts
the flavor profile comes from the minerality in it and
while it's 95 percent sodium chloride, that 5 percent of trace minerals is
different
from here than it is from anywhere else in the world -- any other source
so that would make that's what makes our salt standout...
>>NARRATION: Lewis and Nancy are the seventh generation of their family to operate the saltworks
here in Malden. The original Dickinson salt makers first drilled for brine
on the property back in 1817.
>>NANCY: there were several factors that were involved
in our decision
to start this business back and revive our families' -- our business
one was -- the major one is the movement of chefs and consumers toward
very naturally made local products and the demand for that is
is really growing as consumers want more and more naturally
grown and produced products and also
there are more consumers and chefs that have more than one salt
in their pantry and they're
more educated about what those salts mean and the
flavor varieties that you can get and also with our deep family heritage
we thought with that too, it was sort of an ah-ha moment.
We couldn't not start this business again so
we thought everything was -- all the stars were aligned and we were ready to
ready to move forward.
>>NARRATION: Using the Sun and wind
to make salt might not be the fastest way to do it
but these artisans aren't really concerned about speed
>>LEWIS: We're small batch. We're intensive
on quality as opposed to quantity but we do make quite a bit of salt
Our season is eight to nine months because we're not producing much salt in
the winter but
last year we made about 6,000 pounds of salt
this year we hope to make at least seven --
but we're selling it by the ounce so
that's a lot more than you think. So our supply is there
and the demand is growing so
we feel pretty good about it. >>NANCY: and we wanted to have as little environmental impact
as possible and be part of a sustainable food system so it's very important to us
to come up with a production method that spoke to all those things
and solar evaporation in greenhouses
seem to be the way to go. We're striving to be 100 percent no waste
and not only are we saving our iron
as part of our settling process, we also have
after we harvest our salt there's a liquid that's left that's called nigari
and it's basically the minerals that don't adhere to the salt crystals.
We harvest that and we sell that as well.
It's traditionally used to make tofu but it can also be used to make fresh cheese
it's a natural coagulant and you get all those minerals when you're
using it for that so
from start to finish, we're 100 percent no waste and we're very proud of that
and you know that the way everyone should be moving
is has little environmental impact as possible. It's our responsibility as humans on the Earth.
>>JAKE: The folks at J.Q. Dickinson say they're
even looking into solar panels to run their pumps and fans to make the entire
operation powered
by the Sun. For Environment Matters,
I'm Jake Glance.
>>KELLEY: Thanks, Jake. You can find out more by visiting the website JQDsalt.com
which includes some very interesting recipes...
>>GREG: I have some of their salt in my kitchen
the flavor is really bright and intense. it's great on salted caramel...
>>KELLEY: Mmmmmmm...
Carmel or car-a-mel as Isay it. >>KELLEY: Potato -- pah-tat-toe...
>>GREG: the weather was a little less than cooperative for Huntington's first
sustainability fair.
The fair, which was held back on May 16th, featured workshops and demonstrations
and live music
and rain. Lots and lots of rain.
Despite the soggy conditions, about 300 people turned out for the festivities at
Heritage Station. A late afternoon severe thunderstorm forced organizers to cancel
the evening's musical entertainment but the good news is
its rescheduled. The sustainability Music Fest will take place
on June 27 at Heritage Station. About 80 different groups had presentations or
booths at this year's fair and organizers say they got a lot of positive feedback.
The Sustainability Fair was organized by The Living Local Project, a volunteer led
effort to inspire residents to live more locally based sustainable lifestyle
according to the group's website. West Virginia's getting 1.6 million dollars
in federal EPA grants to help
assess and clean up abandoned former commercial and industrial sites known as
brownfields
>>KELLEY: The cities of Huntington and Martinsburg each received four hundred thousand dollars
in grants
to connect site assessments at several locations with potential contamination
issues from
petroleum or other hazardous substances. The EPA
selected the Business Development Corporation of the Northern Panhandle
for three brownfields cleanup grants totaling six hundred thousand dollars
including here in Chester at the former TS&T
riverbank site. The company made pottery here from 1900 to 1982.
The site is contaminated with metals. The grant also covers cleanups at the former
Wheeling Corrugated Steel Manufacturing plant which closed in 2012 and
Brooke Glass, which has been vacant since 2005. Both of those sites are in Wellsburg.
The EPA also awarded the DEP a two hundred thousand dollar grant to
prioritize brownfield sites
perform assessments and prepare cleanup plans for sites located here
in the Kanawha Valley.
>>GREG: Senate bill 423 which passed during the 2015 West Virginia
legislative session and went into
effect June 12th, amended the above ground storage tank and public water supply
protection acts.
Among the changes is an altered definition what is considered an
above-ground storage tank
and so tanker owners who previously registered their tanks may need to
remove some of them
from the program. If take owners don't
deregister tanks that no longer fit the statutory definition by July 1st
those owners will be sent registration invoices of forty dollars per tank
for more details including how to determine if a tank is covered under the
new regulation
and if not how to deregister that tank
visit our website: www.dep.wv.gov
Summer is finally here and before too long
gardeners will begin harvesting the first have their home-grown vegetables
>>KELLEY: But, some folks -- people who live in apartments or are in tight urban lots,
for example,
don't always have the space to plant. That's where community gardens
come in. The DEP's Briana Hickman takes us to one project in Fairmont
it's kicking off its second season.
>>NARRATION: This former tennis court is now an oasis in
the middle of a food desert.
>>AMY SIDWELL: it's a wonderful benefit to have the garden here
there is not a grocery store within walking distance of this neighborhood
and so to be able to have an opportunity for residents to plant
fruits and vegetables and harvest them on their own is is really a tremendous
opportunity for our community
>>NARRATION: This is the second season for the Fairmont community garden project
a collaborative effort between the city, the neighborhood,
and Fairmont State University.
>>AMY SIDWELL: We've made tremendous progress in the last several months.
We've completed our rainwater collection system. We have filled the remaining
garden beds
and we really planted a lot a plants so far this season.
>>NARRATION: The rainwater collection system was a hands-on learning project for the
university's engineering department
>>MARK WOLF: The goal was to see the big picture of the system,
understand the processes, be able to create a relationship with in
engineering
to
project management and looking at deadlines
and constraints in timelines and being able to work with the
the project, hopefully has brought a lot more to the table of the reality of
what engineers really do.
They were able to achieve accomplish this project
through the semester period of time which
added levels of stress within other projects that they were currently
working on.
We were also able to take this project right to the classroom
>>SHAWN DAVIS: When we built this, we made it so that we can use the same roof
over top of it to limit the space in here because
that way in the future we can build more garden beds. So the water will come in here, goes into the 3-inch
pipe.
It will fill up the first tank on the left.
Once it fills up, it'll overflow into the second tank.
Everything is sealed so once the second tank fills up, there's an overflow on the far
right
that goes out the back for the extra rain water.
Then we built a manifold in the front where we can use either tank.
Once this one is full, it will go over and fill this one up and then we can
save this water since this is the second one to fill up, we can save it and then use this one
that way if
we have a long time period without rain, we can go
just offer that one there.
The manifold goes in the four valves
there's two on the other side here, got two on the front, two on the back...
that we can run a hose out of each side.
We have a hose reel we can hook this
to and when we get more water in there the pressure will be
a little higher where students can actually or the
community can actually go through and garden instead of having to carry the
cans up
>>NARRATION: Other improvements from last year -- this bridge that crosses Coal Run
and connects the community garden to the fifth Street Park located just up the
hill
>>AMY: The reactions than wonderful. We have had such tremendous support from the
University and the City.
We've had student groups here. We've had businesses come and visit
so it's really been wonderful to see the community support for this project
>>NARRATION: and project organizers say they hope that support continues to grow
just like these tomatoes and peppers. In Fairmont,
I'm Briana Hickman for Environment Matters.
>>KELLEY: The project was financed in part
by twenty five thousand dollar grant from the Ford Motor Company.
Fairmont State's C3 grant was just one only 10 winning student sustainability
projects nationally
and the only one in West Virginia. In addition to providing
neighbors a place to grow healthy food, the community garden also provides fresh
fruits and vegetables to the nest
student feedback on campus. >>GREG: Just ahead,
we'll meet the folks behind the 2015 West Virginia watershed of the year.
>>WOMAN: I feel like this particular community, because we live right next to the river
we're especially aware of
the river and changes and
the way of the watershed...
>>KELLEY: Plus, we're cleared for takeoff. Seeing the world from a slightly higher perspective
Those stories and more when Environment Maters continues...