By Adam Pack
Matt Ford was proud to be at Greenbrier West High School on Monday, May 22 to present to the public the culmination of his and the Greenbrier Environmental Group’s Spring 2023 edition of their collaboration with students of Greenbrier West High School. For months, students at West have been learning, alongside members of Greenbrier Environmental’s “Meadow River Rail Trail Team,” headed by Ford, multi-disciplinary skills in marketing, public speaking, research and development, and other valuable, marketable skills in association with the design and ultimate arrival of Meadow River Rail Trail access in their area.
“We’ve been meeting with students now once a month for a semester to help them sort of shadow people in environmental engineering, marketing, environmental science, and several other fields of work that have their hands on this project,” said Ford. “We just want to expose them to as much as we can vocationally and show them maybe something they haven’t thought of.”
This was the first year of the collaborative program, and Ford believes that it will continue to bear fruit and inspire Greenbrier West students for the next two or three years, as the project continues. This presentation coincided nicely with the approaching finalization of the design for Phase III of the trail’s course, a roughly eight-mile portion from the end of the trail’s Phase II construction into Rainelle.
Project Manager Todd Schoolcraft of E.L. Robinson Engineering explained that once they complete the design drawings the job will be ready to go out to bid. Schoolcraft expects that the work will take one year, but is glad that the project is fully funded via a $2,000,000 grant from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Abandoned Mine Reclamation Pilot Program, as well as a $75,000 legislative grant.
Schoolcraft spoke for both he and Ford when he said that this trail portion could bring opportunity to the region. “Just think of all the kayak liveries, whitewater rafting, fishing, and trail riding that people will be doing, as you’ve basically got a land and water companion trail on your hands here. Then those people will want amenities, restaurants, and accommodations. It could be a really big boost for such a wonderful town that’s still working hard to recover from the flood,” said Schoolcraft.
He feels that the potential of the area is almost limitless, comparing it to the Smoky Mountains. “You go up there and those mountains are so steep, and yet entrepreneurs and businesses have gone up there and put cabins and roads where it doesn’t even look like they can go. Here, the mountains are much more easily sloped and could accommodate any number of ventures like they have in eastern Tennessee, and more maybe.”
Schoolcraft and E.L. Robsinson have also taken great care to design aesthetically appropriate and appealing features along the trail, including benches which Schoolcraft describes as having, “a rustic, railroad tie style to them that will blend well with the railroad and timber industry of the area,” and even plans to, “select rocks along this last phase of the trail, and commission an artisan to carve whimsical original rock carvings tucked away in different places along the trail.”
