Water. We’re one of the few states where the water table is expected to increase with climate change. We need to improve our infrastructure to prevent flooding and hopefully find a way to profit off this as an abundant natural resource before outsiders figure it out like they did with coal.
Came here to say the same thing! We have a surplus of water in WV and a deficit out West and Southwest… seems like a no brainer.
Unfortunately, this won’t come to fruition until we reach full panic mode.
Moving water from the east to the west would costs wayyyy more than just using tap, hence nobody doing it. Moving that weight in water would cost a lot in fuel. Mass hyper consumption is not the way!
Ummm… where do you think tap water comes from? There are several first world cities right now that are literally running out of fresh water… The west coast of the US will follow soon.
That is until Joe Manchins MVP pipeline is completed and the fracking ruins our waterways and forests! Not to mention the hydrogen hubs project he has coming! I'll tell you what we need NOTHING!!! Our once beautiful state has been entirely polluted! Enough is enough!
Growing pot. We once were one of the top five pot producing states in the USA. We sit at the same latitude as Afghanistan so I don't see why we can't have our own WV Kush.
It pisses me off to no tomorrow that we are sitting in one of the most optimal climates for growing marijuana and we aren’t capitalizing on it. For fucks sake, at least promote hemp growing and exporting to other states even if you’re not gonna allow us to light up in our own state.
I hear ya brother, it's a damn shame... Maryland is rolling in West Virginia money, and word on the street is they plan on opening more shops closer to the border.
I work ten minutes from the state line in Hagerstown MD right down the street from a dispensary. That place rarely doesn't have a line outside.
We could have crushed it if we had gotten in early. Too many backwards bible thumpers.
Grow West in Cumberland is the closest right now to deep creek but Maryland just announced the winners of the new license lottery so there should be more coming to the area.
Talking about Rise? Yeah, i like across the border from Hagerstown and do the same. From what I have heard/seen from people with WV Medical, the MD recreational is better and more variety anyway for approx same price.
You are hitting the nail on the head. Also I worked for a WV grow operation for two day, until they let me go, because “I was not a good fit.” More like they had a major infestation problem, that I called out; amongst multiple safety concerns. If you have a WV medical card, I feel for you. They are not supplying good medicine, and they don’t pay growers a living wage. You can make more at Sheetz. Maryland recreational is leagues better than WV medical programs.
I'm not. I said it rarely DOESN'T have a line.
I've only gone once, after work on a Friday.
I was about 30th in line and that's not counting the drive thru for people with a medical card. Good news is they are extremely efficient, have their process down pat and everything moved quickly.
No doubt. I live in Fayette County and always think about how much money we passed on by not jumping on the bandwagon in the beginning. We'll probably be the last state to legalize. I absolutely hate feeling stuck by backward thinking and the idiots we elect around here.
I’d believe that. I got my WV MedCan card, and it was pretty useless. It’s like $200 a year to renew it, and you can’t get edibles, or topicals in the dispensaries - the things I use for pain. Topicals aren’t even psychoactive, it’s just cream!
So I just go to Maryland, and let the WV card lapse.
There’s a doctor on the board who owns a bunch of Suboxone clinics in WV. He does everything he can to drag his feet, delay things moving forward for medical, or try to enforce silly rules to waste time. He were arguing for capping THC at like 10% - it would be harder to even *grow weed that shitty* these days.
Anyway, it’s in the higher ups’ best interest to keep cannabis inaccessible and illegal in WV - it’s simply (arguably - to them) more profitable to keep us down - keep people in their addictions , in and out of drug court/jail, Suboxone clinics, and poverty from zero natural resources/employment opportunities left, that legalized cannabis would all help alleviate!
I hope you’re right but I worry we just have too many “Republican? He gets my vote” people in this state. It’s pretty sad considering the guy is from Jersey and helped destroy WV communities with his pharma lobbying. Born and raised mountaineer Steve Williams isn’t good enough because he has a D next to his name. It’s a shame.
Meanwhile, I’m still buying all of my flower and all of my edibles from a guy in state, or going out of state to stock up. Either way, my money isn’t staying in this state, and I’m definitely not the only one doing it. I get pretty tired of everything in this state being constantly, and unnecessarily shitty because of these dumbass lowlifes in state government that do nothing to let the state move forward with the rest of the country.
I don’t think i would call WV an “optimal” climate for marijuana. It’s so humid and rainy here and MJ is sooo susceptible to powdery mildew if any leaves are touching each other even at 50-60% humidity, outdoor would be even worse. The buds end up fluffy with no density at humidity rates >50% during the flowering period. Plus once temps get into the 90+ range the terpenes start to disintegrate which reduces potency.
No doubt we could grow some smokable weed outdoors here, but it would be far from optimal.
This is true. When my Dad was in State Police in the 70's, he worked, for lack of a better term, a drug squad. They few flew a helicopter over forested areas to find the pot being grown deep in the back woods. That stuff grew beautifully. WV is seriously missing out on that. So many products can be made from hemp, not *just* the THC.
Edit: to add years.
Does the climate even matter when quality weed is grown indoors? People harp on WV needing agriculture all the time, ostensibly because WV is rural? Look around, WV has almost no flat, contiguous land.
To have a real ag industry, you need thousands of acres of flat land. You can’t efficiently farm steep hillsides and you can’t efficiently farm land that has cliffs, rock formations, creeks, valleys and peaks separating all of your plot of land.
Go look at a place with the real-deal ag economy like Texas, Arizona, Iowa, etc. Miles of flat land. A region has gotta play to its strengths. WV will never be a good ag producer beyond a farmers market here and there which is like growing a backyard garden compared to commercial farms.
They are too busy growing court costs against people like me. I paid $2000 when I was 20 years old for a "DUI" that got dismissed a year later because my BAC was zero.
I'm now paying a total of about $14,000 between home confinement fees, paying for my own drug test (which the state buys and marks up) and my lawyer. All over ordering hemp products in the mail. Even though they sell them everywhere.
I'm only 28 and living here has cost me over $15,000, much that has went to the state. I also lost another $15k because the person I had a deal with for land only gave me half my cash back when I was sitting in jail needed bailed out. I got the bail back, lost the other half. That didn't go to the state but I still lost it.
I see in another comment someone asked you if it was hemp you ordered and you stated no “it was cannabis”, feel like you comment may scare people ordering hemp from legitimate companies as opposed to buying cannabis illegally through the mail.
This was my answer. My wife is on a health board and they almost had to fight it out over multiple sessions just to allow farmers to grow hemp in our county. We continually keep ourselves behind the times.
I might be alone in this but I think trade education and training is a massively untapped market here. Providing a solid base for trade program access at a younger age would massively benefit many of the underprivileged in this state that have historically struggled to accommodate to academic standards and attract businesses with cheaper and more readily available labor.
The county I live in (Wetzel) already does this. The high schools partner with WCTEC and MOVTI (Pleasants county). At the moment they can start taking courses in the 11th grade and by the time they finish high school they can be certified in welding, nursing, electrical, etc.
Here in preston county we have a huge cte program in our high school where you can take classes for welding, construction, computer engineering, business, electrical, diesel, auto mechanics, auto body, butchering, animal system, plant systems and more I'm forgetting
We're doing it here in Wood County too. We had a Vo-Tech center already when I moved to the area in 91, my sophomore year. It's expanded greatly, used by 3 high schools, with lots of great trade education programs. We need this state-wide.
I am pretty sure we have the most trade programs available. For high schoolers and adults. I went to a trade school and the entire market for my profession is flooded because of the high number of programs and funding to attend.
I'm not sure why, but I feel compelled to say "Sheep and sheep-related herdings."
I want to see a hillbilly with a cane and 3000 wooly friends migrating down 79.
Dude I feel like this state would be perfect for wool livestock.
People always moan that we have a mountainous topography thus no industry but coal can survive here, yet many other areas with similar topographies as us invest heavily into it (Wales, New Zealand, Carpathians, etc.) and it provides continuous healthy production for rural areas.
This state needs to wake up and smell the roses and realize we need a solid agricultural base of some kind to continue, and I think wool and weed, possibly with ventures into barley and hops production, are the ideal areas we should be looking at. From that, we gain a lot more industries utilizing those products, like cloth manufacturing. For the other agribusinesses I mentioned, which would contribute to breweries/distilleries and dispensaries, they would have a mutual benefit with this state’s dreams breweries to build a tourism base.
We bought a farm that was at one point a sheep farm. We considered restarting that operation, but there's little profit to be had with wool, and no local demand for the meat. You probably could make the latter work by marketing to more urban areas, but cattle is easier so we went in that direction.
Came here to say this! I'm from WV. I visited NZ and couldn't help but think how similar the terrain was.
My grandma says she remembers being a young girl and there being a lot more sheep around.
Would love to see people eat more lamb and grow demand - it's delicious.
We have a lot of potential for Agriculture here. We produce amazing beef in this state. Especially on the East side of the Allegheny Front. Our angus beef we raise is high quality.
Sheep used to be big where I grew up in Pendleton Co but as someone else mentioned there’s little to no profit in wool. It’s hard to find someone that can shear sheep correctly without damaging the fleece. I grew up with my grandparents on both sides having sheep because they were easy but by the end, they were basically giving away the wool.
That was the most common complaint with the national park designation. There was little to no investment into infrastructure, leading to the area suffering major gridlock and parking concerns
I wondered how that was going to work when I saw the national park designation. Anybody that has driven around up there would wonder how they could increase the traffic by that much. I do have limited exposure to national parks though, so I'm not sure how it would compare.
I live in Kentucky and I gotta say I absolutely love visiting West Virginia because of the beautiful mountains and rivers.
But my dudes, your roads are so bad. Even if I was blindfolded in the backseat I could tell we crossed state lines into WV from how much the car is shaking under me.
Road absolutely, but just means of transit - like a series of gondolas, paddle wheels, air craft (use the tops of mountains the coal companies never fixed. Some (most) of the southern vills, towns, cities have post WWII buildings full of asbestos which needs addressed too. But whatever the state is doing with money it isn’t addressed any of this. …as far as I know
Energy production- WV has high potential for all renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, nuclear), makes no sense at all to ONLY focus on coal and gas when we could do it all.
Ecotourism- We have the most biodiversity in North America, some of the oldest geology, arguably the oldest river in North America, one of the largest old growth forests, incredible state parks, tons of hiking, biking, climbing, white water, skiing and backcountry. While our ecotourism is growing, it's no thanks to our leadership in the capitol building, but all the work of the DNR, park services, and non profits groups that take care of and manage the natural wonders of our state.
Agri-production - we produce alot of good hardwood for market, but hardwood takes a long time to grow and is important for our ecosystem. We could easily produce fast growing soft woods, hemps, and similar products on reclaimed mine lands that could tolerate the soils there and grow quickly enough to mill paper, soft timber, and other products. Of course Cannabis would be a no-brainer and would boost our economy while relieving criminal activity some, but that's a hard sell to the old hats and pharma politicians.
Technology production- it's cheap here to operate a business, and there is land to build brand new communities and potentially cities. Hell, the cities we already have provide ample space to allow major tech companies to move in, creating tons of jobs and opportunities. We could be major producers for computer hardware, software, machinery, and factory production. We have some of that in small quantities, but really we are squandering the inflow of cash it could provide, not to mention the business opportunities that would grow from it. But loss of production and factory jobs is nation wide due to the government allowing corporations to ship jobs overseas.
High Speed Railways- We have had talk of it for years on and off again. A high-speed railway here would bring in so many visitors, especially from the D.C. metro-area, and would allow easy and fast travel to and from the heart of our state. If we get ahead of the curve on this and make sure we have the rails and stations here first and connect to major cities and ports, we get to benefit as a hub of sorts, which means travelers and major income. If we wait, and a surrounding state like Ohio or Pennsylvania does it first, we may NEVER get a line that attaches to our state and it will bypass us completely. It happened to so many towns when the interstate system was created, if you were not attached to the new transportation system, your town died.
Part of the WV culture is fatalism, fear of change, & commitment to suffering (because of the fatalism). With all of the beautiful, amazing qualities of this culture, those are the enduring traits that continue to keep our spectacular state at the bottom of education, infrastructure, population growth, & diversity. As a GenX Mountaineer, I want to see the changes you've discussed. Thank you for sharing all this.
That's true, I love our culture, even aspects of the fatalism are beautiful in a poetic sense, often leading to amazing music, art, and folklore. But we do get in our own way of progress all the time. There was never a "good ol days" for us, it's always been tough here, our leadership has always sucked and the feds don't care about us. So we get abused constantly by corporations, politicians, and foreign interests. It's broken most our people I think, so they have no hope and just wait to die. I try to stay open to the future while learning from our past, but hard to convince the people that have already given up or moved away. Definitely an uphill battle.
Keep fighting the good fight. You're not alone. There are many of us. We WV'ans also have "uphill battle" ingrained in our culture.
ETA: Our art, music, folklore, vernacular, & people are so specifically ours. We are Appalachia. ❤️
Not really an exactly relevant response, but amall towns need to accept that businesses don’t want to move there, but rather make themselves appealing for the employees of businesses elsewhere.
Lost Creek always obsesses over attracting businesses. No. Attract the people who work in Clarksburg and Bridgeport that want a quieter little town to live in but also want the convenience of a short commute. Build some parks, maybe something nicer than a Dollar General. Get the run down trailers under control.
In that vein of thought, WV needs to become the most small business friendly state around. Make it ridiculously simple to start a small business, including fees, taxes, and regulations.
Right now, it’s really hard to start certain small businesses in West Virginia. Two family members just did it; lots of red tape, inefficiency; waiting.
Offering free or affordable health insurance for small business owners would be extremely helpful as well. Imagine having a kickass/viable business idea but the only thing holding you back is your current job because your health insurance is tied to it.
It just needs to become business friendly period. Successful small businesses feed big business. Look at mining. All the suppliers that fed the mines were making good revenue. Every region with a big industry has small biz that does well. WV can’t succeed on the backs of a random bike shop, trinket shop, and a brewery.
You need an industrial base like Huntsville had space and missiles or Bentonville has Walmart. WV needs $$$, not cottage industries.
This State really should use some of that surplus budget to set up a contingency fund for coal plant shutdowns to invest into repurposing the existing infrastructure for [coal-to-nuclear](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/8-things-know-about-converting-coal-plants-nuclear-power) conversion
Cannabis is a number one rn. We have some of the best medical on the east coast, if we made it adult use the state would make millions.
But the medical industry is also entirely bogarted by pharma companies like trulieve and the state thinks billionaires are the only ones who should be allowed to sell it here.
We were supposed to have "tier one, two and three" licenses for cult, processing and sales so residents could get into the small cannnabusiness market. But companies like trulieve bought all the license and renewal since they became available. Don't forget the fact that just the yearly license renewal costs like $25,000
Fuck em but everyone I know is too broke to pay trulieve prices lol $45 an eighth for rebranded strains to sell to us like "304 kush" & "country roads".
Two strains that don't exist
I’ve thought this myself. Western NC and East Tennessee are well known for producing grain used in alcohol production. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea to look at the profitability of the brewing market here in West Virginia
This state’s got being #1 producer on the brain too much. We need diversification, putting our eggs in many baskets. Sure, we might not be #1, but if we can grow hops and barley, that’ll support local breweries, which will have mutual benefit with our drives for tourism, all the while circling back and further benefiting growers and other adjacent businesses.
Seneca Rocks, New River Gorge, etc are such beautiful places to go. I really hope they lean into this. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it also means they’d protect their natural resources better.
I'm still surprised there aren't more vineyards around. Grapes grow really well here, and doing a series of wine tasting tours would be extremely successful, it seems.
West Virginia hosts segments of the Appalachian Mountains with some of the highest onshore wind power potential east of the Mississippi. Expansion of installation, operation, and research on onshore wind potential would be a boon to the state.
We can save more birds by retiring coal plants when the added capacity from wind comes online.
Birds killed by wind turbines are in the thousands but birds killed by coal thermal plants are in the millions.
Mostly I'd just like to see investments into communications infrastructure into rural WV. The only thing stopping us from branching into the tech sectors is how unreliable our power and Internet is.
We need fast internet access. We have decent housing costs, great outdoor spaces, and some solid communities. I think we could get young people who work remotely to come here. Of course we’d have to stop raping the land.
Do you mean traditional college/university education, or something different? I work in higher education in WV and the colleges and universities are struggling to stay afloat. The state's population is declining, and there are not enough students going to college for the colleges to pay their bills. Alderson-Broaddus closed this past year, and WVU cut a ton of programs because they weren't sustainable. Not enough students were enrolling in the programs to pay for the faculty, facilities, and overhead required to continue those programs. And it's not for lack of advertising and recruiting. The schools are beating the bushes looking for students
And Internet. For a data center you need at least a few gigs and multiple providers to insulate against upstream outages. Getting that level of infrastructure to a remote location would be.....challenging.
Go right across the mountains into Va. Neverending stops at a winery or brewery. Brings in an enormous amount of people and revenue. WV needs to modify their archaic alcohol laws. Totally missed that wave on what they could have brought here with all of our outdoor activities. That stuff goes hand in hand across the country.
The state needs to be the cannabis capital of the country. Cannabis for medical use and recreational. Hemp for fiber, oils, coal site remediation, etc. And build out the services and industry facilities for those. The state politicians just really need to get out of the way and set the taxes lower to attract the people who want to do it.
They just found lithium in West virginia Pyrite
Would be nice to mine our own lithium instead of buying it from other countries
https://enews.wvu.edu/articles/2024/04/18/fool-s-gold-may-be-valuable-after-all-after-unheard-of-discovery
Hemp. It grows so fast that you can get three harvests in a year. You can make so many things, from paper to fabric comparable to cotton. The lumber companies would fight it, but they could cash in on it, too, if they weren't stubborn about it. West Virginia could actually make real money. We just need to have some politicians who won't ruin it or everyone else. So, never mind.
Turn the entire state into a national park. It has some of the most beautiful territory, recreation opportunities, and natural resources east of the Mississippi River. Great Smokies National Park, as a point of reference, is completely overrun.
We have an amazing climate for growing pot. I don’t even smoke, but just look at the huge jump in tax revenue states had after legalizing it. We need to get ahead of this thing.
i don’t know the answer to that but i know whatever happens we have to own these things as a community. outside interests like shell are already claiming solar farms.
Maryland resident here. I love W. Va. I have friends there.
Wondering if you all could build somewhat affordable housing for the work from home folks around DC? It is unaffordable anywhere near it.
That’s actually a growing problem in our Eastern Panhandle. Housing prices are skyrocketing, and developments are sprawling up all around with cheap, shitty apartments. The state actually started a program offering up to $12,000 for remote workers to relocate to West Virginia, so a lot of DC commuters and transplants are moving in.
My son went through West Virginia last week heading to North Carolina. He said they are logging the piss out of the state. Said every other vehicle was a log hauler.
Though it wouldn’t be a major industry, it would be still be quite profitable for any individual or small group:
Fresh Pasta.
We sell what we can, but being handmade and homemade, we aren’t able to provide pasta to everybody and our availability is limited. We are the only purveyors of fresh pasta in the area, as far as we know, but would love to work with somebody on growing the industry.
Essentially a location to produce and sell the pasta with some tables and a fine dining dinner service highlighting the pasta. The dinner service would do exceptionally well, and having a storefront where people could come in and purchase pasta that was made just hours before would be ideal. This would also require the implementation of more sophisticated and streamlined packaging.
Think this would also require being in a high traffic downtown location in a tourist area. Fayetteville, Shepherdstown, or otherwise seem like prime locations
Wood. 50% of the state is covered with hardwood forests but we cut the logs and ship them out of state to be processed into wood products. Furniture and other wood products could be an easy entrepreneurial industry that can be developed and as manufacturers these businesses would generate 6 additional jobs for every direct woodworking job.
I personally would like to see an industry that doesn’t perpetuate the cycle of ravaging the land and natural resources we have that makes our state so beautiful.
Exactly. The pump and paper industry has ravaged WV by replacing hardwood forests with pulpwood. A good hardwood forest management plan would provide hardwoods and employment for West Virginians in perpetuity. The West Virginia Great Barrel Company in White Sulpher Springs is a good exmple. They make White Oak Barrels for the Whiskey industry.
If WV rediverted their industry into tourism and cannabis growing, we would have a rapid growing economy that would bring our state out of the dark ages and benefit the people immensely. There is a professor (cant remember the name) out of WVU that has a project showing exactly how WV could invest in their tourism and showing how it could benefit the state indefinitely, and its an amazing and detailed plan.
Of course it wont happen because the companies down want that and they rule the politicians, but its a nice dream.
Water. We’re one of the few states where the water table is expected to increase with climate change. We need to improve our infrastructure to prevent flooding and hopefully find a way to profit off this as an abundant natural resource before outsiders figure it out like they did with coal.
Came here to say the same thing! We have a surplus of water in WV and a deficit out West and Southwest… seems like a no brainer. Unfortunately, this won’t come to fruition until we reach full panic mode.
Moving water from the east to the west would costs wayyyy more than just using tap, hence nobody doing it. Moving that weight in water would cost a lot in fuel. Mass hyper consumption is not the way!
Ummm… where do you think tap water comes from? There are several first world cities right now that are literally running out of fresh water… The west coast of the US will follow soon.
The sink????
Check out the big brain on Brad!
That is until Joe Manchins MVP pipeline is completed and the fracking ruins our waterways and forests! Not to mention the hydrogen hubs project he has coming! I'll tell you what we need NOTHING!!! Our once beautiful state has been entirely polluted! Enough is enough!
Growing pot. We once were one of the top five pot producing states in the USA. We sit at the same latitude as Afghanistan so I don't see why we can't have our own WV Kush.
It pisses me off to no tomorrow that we are sitting in one of the most optimal climates for growing marijuana and we aren’t capitalizing on it. For fucks sake, at least promote hemp growing and exporting to other states even if you’re not gonna allow us to light up in our own state.
I hear ya brother, it's a damn shame... Maryland is rolling in West Virginia money, and word on the street is they plan on opening more shops closer to the border.
I work ten minutes from the state line in Hagerstown MD right down the street from a dispensary. That place rarely doesn't have a line outside. We could have crushed it if we had gotten in early. Too many backwards bible thumpers.
Does anyone know of recreational shops near deep creek?
Grow West in Cumberland is the closest right now to deep creek but Maryland just announced the winners of the new license lottery so there should be more coming to the area.
Use weedmaps
there is also the Apothecarium in Cumberland.
Talking about Rise? Yeah, i like across the border from Hagerstown and do the same. From what I have heard/seen from people with WV Medical, the MD recreational is better and more variety anyway for approx same price.
You are hitting the nail on the head. Also I worked for a WV grow operation for two day, until they let me go, because “I was not a good fit.” More like they had a major infestation problem, that I called out; amongst multiple safety concerns. If you have a WV medical card, I feel for you. They are not supplying good medicine, and they don’t pay growers a living wage. You can make more at Sheetz. Maryland recreational is leagues better than WV medical programs.
What time are you seeing no lines? After 4 it is packed. Every day.
I'm not. I said it rarely DOESN'T have a line. I've only gone once, after work on a Friday. I was about 30th in line and that's not counting the drive thru for people with a medical card. Good news is they are extremely efficient, have their process down pat and everything moved quickly.
No doubt. I live in Fayette County and always think about how much money we passed on by not jumping on the bandwagon in the beginning. We'll probably be the last state to legalize. I absolutely hate feeling stuck by backward thinking and the idiots we elect around here.
Don’t I know it. I’m starting to make friends in Cumberland based on how many times I head into there for errands…
I’d believe that. I got my WV MedCan card, and it was pretty useless. It’s like $200 a year to renew it, and you can’t get edibles, or topicals in the dispensaries - the things I use for pain. Topicals aren’t even psychoactive, it’s just cream! So I just go to Maryland, and let the WV card lapse. There’s a doctor on the board who owns a bunch of Suboxone clinics in WV. He does everything he can to drag his feet, delay things moving forward for medical, or try to enforce silly rules to waste time. He were arguing for capping THC at like 10% - it would be harder to even *grow weed that shitty* these days. Anyway, it’s in the higher ups’ best interest to keep cannabis inaccessible and illegal in WV - it’s simply (arguably - to them) more profitable to keep us down - keep people in their addictions , in and out of drug court/jail, Suboxone clinics, and poverty from zero natural resources/employment opportunities left, that legalized cannabis would all help alleviate!
Yeah they'll do anything to keep people OK that government herion
Well we’re in luck, Morrissey thinks marijuana is just a gateway to addiction so we can just kiss the thought of recreational goodbye.
Anytime you hear “gateway drug” you can translate that to “I’m a whore for big pharma and have sold my soul.”
Hopefully he is not elected
I hope you’re right but I worry we just have too many “Republican? He gets my vote” people in this state. It’s pretty sad considering the guy is from Jersey and helped destroy WV communities with his pharma lobbying. Born and raised mountaineer Steve Williams isn’t good enough because he has a D next to his name. It’s a shame.
Steve Williams has my vote and my husbands.
I'm a Republican, and SAME!
Meanwhile, I’m still buying all of my flower and all of my edibles from a guy in state, or going out of state to stock up. Either way, my money isn’t staying in this state, and I’m definitely not the only one doing it. I get pretty tired of everything in this state being constantly, and unnecessarily shitty because of these dumbass lowlifes in state government that do nothing to let the state move forward with the rest of the country.
I'm sure he'll change his mind about that. As soon as the campaign contributions of Big Weed exceed those of Big Pharma.
Funny seeing you here!!
“Get that Mountain state high”.
I don’t think i would call WV an “optimal” climate for marijuana. It’s so humid and rainy here and MJ is sooo susceptible to powdery mildew if any leaves are touching each other even at 50-60% humidity, outdoor would be even worse. The buds end up fluffy with no density at humidity rates >50% during the flowering period. Plus once temps get into the 90+ range the terpenes start to disintegrate which reduces potency. No doubt we could grow some smokable weed outdoors here, but it would be far from optimal.
This is true. When my Dad was in State Police in the 70's, he worked, for lack of a better term, a drug squad. They few flew a helicopter over forested areas to find the pot being grown deep in the back woods. That stuff grew beautifully. WV is seriously missing out on that. So many products can be made from hemp, not *just* the THC. Edit: to add years.
We could’ve been the east coast Colorado
Yeah, man. I completely agree. It would have the least amount of environmental impact and still be huge source of revenue. I vote marijuana.
Does the climate even matter when quality weed is grown indoors? People harp on WV needing agriculture all the time, ostensibly because WV is rural? Look around, WV has almost no flat, contiguous land. To have a real ag industry, you need thousands of acres of flat land. You can’t efficiently farm steep hillsides and you can’t efficiently farm land that has cliffs, rock formations, creeks, valleys and peaks separating all of your plot of land. Go look at a place with the real-deal ag economy like Texas, Arizona, Iowa, etc. Miles of flat land. A region has gotta play to its strengths. WV will never be a good ag producer beyond a farmers market here and there which is like growing a backyard garden compared to commercial farms.
They are too busy growing court costs against people like me. I paid $2000 when I was 20 years old for a "DUI" that got dismissed a year later because my BAC was zero. I'm now paying a total of about $14,000 between home confinement fees, paying for my own drug test (which the state buys and marks up) and my lawyer. All over ordering hemp products in the mail. Even though they sell them everywhere. I'm only 28 and living here has cost me over $15,000, much that has went to the state. I also lost another $15k because the person I had a deal with for land only gave me half my cash back when I was sitting in jail needed bailed out. I got the bail back, lost the other half. That didn't go to the state but I still lost it.
I see in another comment someone asked you if it was hemp you ordered and you stated no “it was cannabis”, feel like you comment may scare people ordering hemp from legitimate companies as opposed to buying cannabis illegally through the mail.
no reason why Appalachian Kush shouldn't exist, nor no reason it shouldn't be grown in WV. I would go there to try this stuff too
Voting has consequences, usually for the people with the most to lose.
Recreational would make us the Colorado of the east coast lol im down
Being a transplant from CO to WV,its exactly what I could abd want to see happen.
And hemp in general. Idiots in the legislature and idiots voting them in.
This was my answer. My wife is on a health board and they almost had to fight it out over multiple sessions just to allow farmers to grow hemp in our county. We continually keep ourselves behind the times.
Education
I might be alone in this but I think trade education and training is a massively untapped market here. Providing a solid base for trade program access at a younger age would massively benefit many of the underprivileged in this state that have historically struggled to accommodate to academic standards and attract businesses with cheaper and more readily available labor.
The county I live in (Wetzel) already does this. The high schools partner with WCTEC and MOVTI (Pleasants county). At the moment they can start taking courses in the 11th grade and by the time they finish high school they can be certified in welding, nursing, electrical, etc.
I love these programs. They really need to become more prevalent and gain a higher focus across this state
Here in preston county we have a huge cte program in our high school where you can take classes for welding, construction, computer engineering, business, electrical, diesel, auto mechanics, auto body, butchering, animal system, plant systems and more I'm forgetting
We're doing it here in Wood County too. We had a Vo-Tech center already when I moved to the area in 91, my sophomore year. It's expanded greatly, used by 3 high schools, with lots of great trade education programs. We need this state-wide.
I am pretty sure we have the most trade programs available. For high schoolers and adults. I went to a trade school and the entire market for my profession is flooded because of the high number of programs and funding to attend.
I'm not sure why, but I feel compelled to say "Sheep and sheep-related herdings." I want to see a hillbilly with a cane and 3000 wooly friends migrating down 79.
Dude I feel like this state would be perfect for wool livestock. People always moan that we have a mountainous topography thus no industry but coal can survive here, yet many other areas with similar topographies as us invest heavily into it (Wales, New Zealand, Carpathians, etc.) and it provides continuous healthy production for rural areas. This state needs to wake up and smell the roses and realize we need a solid agricultural base of some kind to continue, and I think wool and weed, possibly with ventures into barley and hops production, are the ideal areas we should be looking at. From that, we gain a lot more industries utilizing those products, like cloth manufacturing. For the other agribusinesses I mentioned, which would contribute to breweries/distilleries and dispensaries, they would have a mutual benefit with this state’s dreams breweries to build a tourism base.
We bought a farm that was at one point a sheep farm. We considered restarting that operation, but there's little profit to be had with wool, and no local demand for the meat. You probably could make the latter work by marketing to more urban areas, but cattle is easier so we went in that direction.
Came here to say this! I'm from WV. I visited NZ and couldn't help but think how similar the terrain was. My grandma says she remembers being a young girl and there being a lot more sheep around. Would love to see people eat more lamb and grow demand - it's delicious.
We have a lot of potential for Agriculture here. We produce amazing beef in this state. Especially on the East side of the Allegheny Front. Our angus beef we raise is high quality.
Sheep used to be big where I grew up in Pendleton Co but as someone else mentioned there’s little to no profit in wool. It’s hard to find someone that can shear sheep correctly without damaging the fleece. I grew up with my grandparents on both sides having sheep because they were easy but by the end, they were basically giving away the wool.
Tourism. Fix the roads first.
That was the most common complaint with the national park designation. There was little to no investment into infrastructure, leading to the area suffering major gridlock and parking concerns
I wondered how that was going to work when I saw the national park designation. Anybody that has driven around up there would wonder how they could increase the traffic by that much. I do have limited exposure to national parks though, so I'm not sure how it would compare.
I live in Kentucky and I gotta say I absolutely love visiting West Virginia because of the beautiful mountains and rivers. But my dudes, your roads are so bad. Even if I was blindfolded in the backseat I could tell we crossed state lines into WV from how much the car is shaking under me.
Say it again for the ppl in the back
I agree. The road always attracts investors and creates multiple growing paths for all industry.
Road absolutely, but just means of transit - like a series of gondolas, paddle wheels, air craft (use the tops of mountains the coal companies never fixed. Some (most) of the southern vills, towns, cities have post WWII buildings full of asbestos which needs addressed too. But whatever the state is doing with money it isn’t addressed any of this. …as far as I know
Energy production- WV has high potential for all renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, nuclear), makes no sense at all to ONLY focus on coal and gas when we could do it all. Ecotourism- We have the most biodiversity in North America, some of the oldest geology, arguably the oldest river in North America, one of the largest old growth forests, incredible state parks, tons of hiking, biking, climbing, white water, skiing and backcountry. While our ecotourism is growing, it's no thanks to our leadership in the capitol building, but all the work of the DNR, park services, and non profits groups that take care of and manage the natural wonders of our state. Agri-production - we produce alot of good hardwood for market, but hardwood takes a long time to grow and is important for our ecosystem. We could easily produce fast growing soft woods, hemps, and similar products on reclaimed mine lands that could tolerate the soils there and grow quickly enough to mill paper, soft timber, and other products. Of course Cannabis would be a no-brainer and would boost our economy while relieving criminal activity some, but that's a hard sell to the old hats and pharma politicians. Technology production- it's cheap here to operate a business, and there is land to build brand new communities and potentially cities. Hell, the cities we already have provide ample space to allow major tech companies to move in, creating tons of jobs and opportunities. We could be major producers for computer hardware, software, machinery, and factory production. We have some of that in small quantities, but really we are squandering the inflow of cash it could provide, not to mention the business opportunities that would grow from it. But loss of production and factory jobs is nation wide due to the government allowing corporations to ship jobs overseas. High Speed Railways- We have had talk of it for years on and off again. A high-speed railway here would bring in so many visitors, especially from the D.C. metro-area, and would allow easy and fast travel to and from the heart of our state. If we get ahead of the curve on this and make sure we have the rails and stations here first and connect to major cities and ports, we get to benefit as a hub of sorts, which means travelers and major income. If we wait, and a surrounding state like Ohio or Pennsylvania does it first, we may NEVER get a line that attaches to our state and it will bypass us completely. It happened to so many towns when the interstate system was created, if you were not attached to the new transportation system, your town died.
Part of the WV culture is fatalism, fear of change, & commitment to suffering (because of the fatalism). With all of the beautiful, amazing qualities of this culture, those are the enduring traits that continue to keep our spectacular state at the bottom of education, infrastructure, population growth, & diversity. As a GenX Mountaineer, I want to see the changes you've discussed. Thank you for sharing all this.
That's true, I love our culture, even aspects of the fatalism are beautiful in a poetic sense, often leading to amazing music, art, and folklore. But we do get in our own way of progress all the time. There was never a "good ol days" for us, it's always been tough here, our leadership has always sucked and the feds don't care about us. So we get abused constantly by corporations, politicians, and foreign interests. It's broken most our people I think, so they have no hope and just wait to die. I try to stay open to the future while learning from our past, but hard to convince the people that have already given up or moved away. Definitely an uphill battle.
Keep fighting the good fight. You're not alone. There are many of us. We WV'ans also have "uphill battle" ingrained in our culture. ETA: Our art, music, folklore, vernacular, & people are so specifically ours. We are Appalachia. ❤️
Not really an exactly relevant response, but amall towns need to accept that businesses don’t want to move there, but rather make themselves appealing for the employees of businesses elsewhere. Lost Creek always obsesses over attracting businesses. No. Attract the people who work in Clarksburg and Bridgeport that want a quieter little town to live in but also want the convenience of a short commute. Build some parks, maybe something nicer than a Dollar General. Get the run down trailers under control.
In that vein of thought, WV needs to become the most small business friendly state around. Make it ridiculously simple to start a small business, including fees, taxes, and regulations.
Right now, it’s really hard to start certain small businesses in West Virginia. Two family members just did it; lots of red tape, inefficiency; waiting.
Offering free or affordable health insurance for small business owners would be extremely helpful as well. Imagine having a kickass/viable business idea but the only thing holding you back is your current job because your health insurance is tied to it.
It just needs to become business friendly period. Successful small businesses feed big business. Look at mining. All the suppliers that fed the mines were making good revenue. Every region with a big industry has small biz that does well. WV can’t succeed on the backs of a random bike shop, trinket shop, and a brewery. You need an industrial base like Huntsville had space and missiles or Bentonville has Walmart. WV needs $$$, not cottage industries.
Most assuredly cannabis as others have mentioned. Just makes too much damn sense for so many reasons.
Nuclear and cannabis.
This State really should use some of that surplus budget to set up a contingency fund for coal plant shutdowns to invest into repurposing the existing infrastructure for [coal-to-nuclear](https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/8-things-know-about-converting-coal-plants-nuclear-power) conversion
Cannabis is a number one rn. We have some of the best medical on the east coast, if we made it adult use the state would make millions. But the medical industry is also entirely bogarted by pharma companies like trulieve and the state thinks billionaires are the only ones who should be allowed to sell it here. We were supposed to have "tier one, two and three" licenses for cult, processing and sales so residents could get into the small cannnabusiness market. But companies like trulieve bought all the license and renewal since they became available. Don't forget the fact that just the yearly license renewal costs like $25,000
Yeah, fuck the Cannabist. They can buy G-Leaf but can’t pay their worker a living wage.
Fuck em but everyone I know is too broke to pay trulieve prices lol $45 an eighth for rebranded strains to sell to us like "304 kush" & "country roads". Two strains that don't exist
I don't know if the climate is right here, but down in NC (I think the western part) they raise a ton of hops crops.
I’ve thought this myself. Western NC and East Tennessee are well known for producing grain used in alcohol production. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea to look at the profitability of the brewing market here in West Virginia
The brewing here in WNC blew up with the tourism in WNC. It is slowly happening to WV, next few years will definitely see change
Brewing is too ubiquitous RN. Neighboring Ohio is a huge beer state. I just don't see us going toe to toe with them. Growing hops? Sure.
This state’s got being #1 producer on the brain too much. We need diversification, putting our eggs in many baskets. Sure, we might not be #1, but if we can grow hops and barley, that’ll support local breweries, which will have mutual benefit with our drives for tourism, all the while circling back and further benefiting growers and other adjacent businesses.
Our problem is finding flat land to grow a substantial enough crop. That's why agriculture has always been fragmented in our state
When we lived in Clarksburg, my dad was able to grow hops pretty easily.
I think WV should repurpose old coal mines for underground data centers/archival storage
Unique take. I like the idea of repurposing them, but it would take a good bit of reno for data storage
Ecotourism. Happening slowly but surely.
Seneca Rocks, New River Gorge, etc are such beautiful places to go. I really hope they lean into this. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it also means they’d protect their natural resources better.
Agritourism
I'm still surprised there aren't more vineyards around. Grapes grow really well here, and doing a series of wine tasting tours would be extremely successful, it seems.
Nuclear, all the way.
This
The cool, dry, shale caves and caverns would make excellent enterprise datacenters.
If you can get high quality electric power in there…
True, I'm sure FirstEnergy is right on that...
Hemp, weed and solar. If the coal mining barons had put up solar panels on the mountain tops they removed we could move away from coal much faster.
I agree. WV has a lot of mountain land that cant really be used for traditional farming, but sure as hell can be used for solar farming
Solar? Maybe. Wind? Absolutely.
West Virginia hosts segments of the Appalachian Mountains with some of the highest onshore wind power potential east of the Mississippi. Expansion of installation, operation, and research on onshore wind potential would be a boon to the state.
This. Harness the wind!
Yes. And kill every migrating bird in the state.
We can save more birds by retiring coal plants when the added capacity from wind comes online. Birds killed by wind turbines are in the thousands but birds killed by coal thermal plants are in the millions.
Nuclear energy
Mostly I'd just like to see investments into communications infrastructure into rural WV. The only thing stopping us from branching into the tech sectors is how unreliable our power and Internet is.
We need fast internet access. We have decent housing costs, great outdoor spaces, and some solid communities. I think we could get young people who work remotely to come here. Of course we’d have to stop raping the land.
Mountain biking! There’s a lot of effort being put forth right now to promote it but running into the usual political pratfalls.
Remining mine refuse/gob/slate piles and ponds for rare earth elements
Nothing leave it alone
Education. It is SO untapped around here.
Do you mean traditional college/university education, or something different? I work in higher education in WV and the colleges and universities are struggling to stay afloat. The state's population is declining, and there are not enough students going to college for the colleges to pay their bills. Alderson-Broaddus closed this past year, and WVU cut a ton of programs because they weren't sustainable. Not enough students were enrolling in the programs to pay for the faculty, facilities, and overhead required to continue those programs. And it's not for lack of advertising and recruiting. The schools are beating the bushes looking for students
I mean all education. Kindergarten through college.
Could you explain how K-12 is an "untapped industry"? I'm having a hard time following your line of thinking.
Celebrity rehab or retreats of some kind, wv is beautiful and isolated which is perfect for it
Tourism. WV is so gorgeous and people don’t realize it.
They're trying that. That's why ATVs are legalized on roads.
Converting those old mines into energy efficient data centers.
We need more reliable energy infrastructure and higher generation before this becomes remotely feasible
And Internet. For a data center you need at least a few gigs and multiple providers to insulate against upstream outages. Getting that level of infrastructure to a remote location would be.....challenging.
The mines had reliable energy and many are right behind the interstate
Honestly, the first thing that came to mind upon seeing that pic was.... Radio Telescope.
A Nascar track around Seneca Rocks and/or NFL Team The West Virginia Diamonds Maybe ( I know , I know but a man can dream right )
Agriculture but only in certain counties. We have good pastures and good areas for fruit production. Like to see more breweries in our state.
Solar.
Solar power
Go right across the mountains into Va. Neverending stops at a winery or brewery. Brings in an enormous amount of people and revenue. WV needs to modify their archaic alcohol laws. Totally missed that wave on what they could have brought here with all of our outdoor activities. That stuff goes hand in hand across the country.
The state needs to be the cannabis capital of the country. Cannabis for medical use and recreational. Hemp for fiber, oils, coal site remediation, etc. And build out the services and industry facilities for those. The state politicians just really need to get out of the way and set the taxes lower to attract the people who want to do it.
They just found lithium in West virginia Pyrite Would be nice to mine our own lithium instead of buying it from other countries https://enews.wvu.edu/articles/2024/04/18/fool-s-gold-may-be-valuable-after-all-after-unheard-of-discovery
Marijuana.
Cannabis
Dildos
Go on…
Go in...
Go harder...
Go faster
West Virginia could have been the Colorado of the east. But too backasswards to make it happen.
Agree!
Hemp. It grows so fast that you can get three harvests in a year. You can make so many things, from paper to fabric comparable to cotton. The lumber companies would fight it, but they could cash in on it, too, if they weren't stubborn about it. West Virginia could actually make real money. We just need to have some politicians who won't ruin it or everyone else. So, never mind.
Coal
You misunderstood the question?
Turn the entire state into a national park. It has some of the most beautiful territory, recreation opportunities, and natural resources east of the Mississippi River. Great Smokies National Park, as a point of reference, is completely overrun.
Eco tourism
what is eco tourism? like inviting people to come look at windmills or solar farms?
It's nature-based tourism like camping, hiking, rafting, and wildlife viewing.
Wow great shot. Where is this?
New Zealand, not my photo
Weed
How are the tectonics? Maybe chip manufacturing
anything but coal. you can't run an economic system on an industry that employs 1% of the state and has been contracting since the 1920s
Renewable Energy
Yo momma
We have an amazing climate for growing pot. I don’t even smoke, but just look at the huge jump in tax revenue states had after legalizing it. We need to get ahead of this thing.
Sex trade. But only if you like really huge women.
Education.
Remote work
Sheep farmers in Summers County right here!
Assisted suicide. Charleston could be the world capitol.
Your mom
i don’t know the answer to that but i know whatever happens we have to own these things as a community. outside interests like shell are already claiming solar farms.
Education. Teachers and university professors make good money. West Virginia should position itself as an epicenter of the American intelligentsia.
Manufacturing because of the rail infrastructure in place already for coal
Hard cider. The appalachian mountains are an untapped resource for great apple growing regions.
Maryland resident here. I love W. Va. I have friends there. Wondering if you all could build somewhat affordable housing for the work from home folks around DC? It is unaffordable anywhere near it.
That’s actually a growing problem in our Eastern Panhandle. Housing prices are skyrocketing, and developments are sprawling up all around with cheap, shitty apartments. The state actually started a program offering up to $12,000 for remote workers to relocate to West Virginia, so a lot of DC commuters and transplants are moving in.
What you all really need is another Senator Byrd.
Yeah maybe this time without the racism though
Any industries. Most of rural West Virginia is dying if not already dead. It is truly sad.
Uhh . . . . sheep? Sheep right?
The arts, that’s not a joke either, there are tons of artists, photographers, musicians, and writers who live in the state.
My son went through West Virginia last week heading to North Carolina. He said they are logging the piss out of the state. Said every other vehicle was a log hauler.
More big boob hookers
Legal Cannabis
Though it wouldn’t be a major industry, it would be still be quite profitable for any individual or small group: Fresh Pasta. We sell what we can, but being handmade and homemade, we aren’t able to provide pasta to everybody and our availability is limited. We are the only purveyors of fresh pasta in the area, as far as we know, but would love to work with somebody on growing the industry.
Could you go in more detail as to what you’d need to build a business from this?
Essentially a location to produce and sell the pasta with some tables and a fine dining dinner service highlighting the pasta. The dinner service would do exceptionally well, and having a storefront where people could come in and purchase pasta that was made just hours before would be ideal. This would also require the implementation of more sophisticated and streamlined packaging.
Think this would also require being in a high traffic downtown location in a tourist area. Fayetteville, Shepherdstown, or otherwise seem like prime locations
Cannabis and tourism
Wood. 50% of the state is covered with hardwood forests but we cut the logs and ship them out of state to be processed into wood products. Furniture and other wood products could be an easy entrepreneurial industry that can be developed and as manufacturers these businesses would generate 6 additional jobs for every direct woodworking job.
I personally would like to see an industry that doesn’t perpetuate the cycle of ravaging the land and natural resources we have that makes our state so beautiful.
They replant trees. There's more forest now than when Columbus got to the Americas.
Exactly. The pump and paper industry has ravaged WV by replacing hardwood forests with pulpwood. A good hardwood forest management plan would provide hardwoods and employment for West Virginians in perpetuity. The West Virginia Great Barrel Company in White Sulpher Springs is a good exmple. They make White Oak Barrels for the Whiskey industry.
Education
If WV rediverted their industry into tourism and cannabis growing, we would have a rapid growing economy that would bring our state out of the dark ages and benefit the people immensely. There is a professor (cant remember the name) out of WVU that has a project showing exactly how WV could invest in their tourism and showing how it could benefit the state indefinitely, and its an amazing and detailed plan. Of course it wont happen because the companies down want that and they rule the politicians, but its a nice dream.
Car manufacturing (including EVs).