Day two WV Coal Project Tour

We began day two leaving Canaan Valley State Park.  We traveled a short distance into the Canaan backcountry to a site that had been stripped bare of vegetation and had also  been mined.  The site has recovered naturally over the past 100 years.  The water quality is acceptable  compared to many other sites near by.  The vast forest of the past are now replaced by spangium moss, blueberries, cherry, maple and other trees and bushes.  We then went down the Blackwater Canyon to the Coketon Douglas Mining Reclaimation site.  This site was the largest mining and coking site in the United States.  Because of the iron sulfide in the mining refuse of the area and a certain bacterium that reacts with it the rocks in the stream, Yellow Creek, are bright orange.  The miners called this yellowboy.   This causes the stream to be very acidic and devoid of life.  After lunch at Blackwater Falls we traveled down highway 219 to Greenbrier County having a fine dinner at Lewisburg.