POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — Part of the flood recovery in West Virginia will include rebuilding stream access points along those waters which caused all of the problems.
Work will be required at a number of spots on the lower end of the Greenbrier River and as you might imagine the lower end of the Elk River is a mess as well.
“We’re at the point of assessing some places and a few places have already been cleaned up,” said Jeff Hansbarger, Fisheries Biologist for District 5 of the West Virginia DNR. “Buffalo has already been scraped already and I’ve got an excavating company looking at Clendenin, Blue Creek, and Mink Shoals where they’ve been inundated with a lot of mud.”
Another place which will require plenty of work is Queen Shoals on the Elk River in District 2.
Normally at this time of year, the Elk and Greenbrier draw a lot of anglers for float fishing opportunities, but after the June 23rd flood the access points have been severely damaged. There’s no timeline for getting the work complete and in many cases it will have to wait while more pressing needs are first addressed.
“We’re trying to get those taken care of, but especially at Clendenin we’re letting people take care of the main problems of the functions of life first,” Hansbarger said. “But definitely a lot of the access sites need a lot of work done.”
The Queen Shoals put-in was particularly hard hit.
“That’s a place it’s going to be very difficult since it was mainly dirt and gravel. Now it has an extra foot of mud and nastiness,” he added. “The concrete ramps will definitely be a lot easier to scrape and take care of.”
Hansbarger said they have made some progress. As he mentioned the Buffalo ramp on the Kanawha River is back in order and the parking lot and ramp at Kanawha Falls has been repaired. Crews have worked on the ramp at Stonecoal Lake. The others will take more time, but Hansbarger assured they are working on them one by one as quickly as possible.