FARMINGTON, W. Va. — In Senator Joe Manchin’s flood-prone hamlet of nearly 200 homes hugging a bend in a shallow creek, the rain is getting worse.
These storms swell the river, called Buffalo Creek, and flood the homes on its shores. They blew the streams running down the hills on either side of this old coal mining town, pushing the water into the basements. They saturate the soil by infiltrating Farmington’s aging pipes and crushing the sewage treatment system.
Climate change warms the air, making it hold more moisture, which causes more frequent and heavy rainfall. And according to data released last week, no state in the contiguous US suffers more flood damage than West Virginia.
Jim Hall, who is married to Mr. Manchin’s cousin, described from the porch of his riverside home how rescuers dragged him and his wife out of their house with a rope. flood in 2017. He told his neighbors that Mr. Manchin’s sister and brother-in-law helped them evacuate their basement when a storm hit. He calls local authorities when he smells raw sewage in the river.
“There has been an incredible amount of rain in West Virginia over the past few years,” Mr. Hall said. “We seriously thought about not staying.”
Manchin, a Democrat whose vote is crucial to pass his party’s climate law, against the most important this will force utilities to stop burning oil, coal and gas and instead use solar, wind and nuclear power that does not release planet-warming carbon dioxide. Last week, the senator made public his opposition to the Biden administration, which is struggling to find alternatives he will accept.
Mr Manchin rejected plans to phase the country away from fossil fuels, saying it would harm West Virginia, the country’s largest producer of coal and gas. Mr. Manchin’s own finances depend on coal: a paying family started a coal brokerage. half a million dollars in dividends last year.
But when it comes to climate, inactivity also has an economic cost.
The new data shows that as climate change intensifies, Mr Manchin’s constituents continue to suffer disproportionately. Unlike in other flood-stricken states, most residents of mountainous West Virginia have little space to move through waterways that are increasingly threatening their safety.
Adding to the problem, experts say, is that West Virginia officials are struggling to better protect residents despite the increase in federal money. They point to a reluctance among state officials to talk about climate change and housing not built for hardship, making West Virginia less adaptable than other parts of the country.
The countermeasure Mr. Manchin opposes could be a clean electricity program. last chance Congress to reduce planet-warming emissions before the effects of climate change become catastrophic.
A clean electricity program would reward utilities that switch from burning oil, gas and coal to wind, solar and nuclear power, and punish those that don’t. It is designed to get 80 percent of the country’s electricity from clean sources by 2030, which is currently 40 percent.
Mr Manchin’s spokesman, Sam Runyon, said the senator had “long recognized the impact of climate change in West Virginia. That’s why he’s worked hard to find a way forward in energy innovation and key climate legislation that maintains American leadership in critical energy reliability.”
Others say Mr Manchin risks harming his state by hindering efforts to reduce coal and gas use.
“Having no credible policy in the US makes it nearly impossible to negotiate real change on a global scale,” said Evan Hansen, a Democratic state representative. What this means is that West Virginians will continue to face increasingly greater impacts from climate change.
Schools, power stations and businesses at risk
NS new flood data It comes from the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit that uses more elaborate techniques than the Federal Emergency Management Agency to measure flood risk.
First Street measures take risks not only from rivers, but also smaller streams and streams from waterways that expose towns like Farmington a lot of flooding, but are often left out of FEMA’s flood maps.
First Street calculated the portion of any infrastructure at risk of being inoperative due to a 100-year flood—a flood that has a statistically 1 percent chance of happening in any given year. The group compared results for each state except Alaska and Hawaii. In most cases, West Virginia topped the list.
Sixty-one percent of West Virginia’s power plants are at risk, the highest nationwide and more than twice the average. West Virginia is also the leader in the share of roads at risk of flooding, with 46 percent.
The state also ranks highest for the share of fire stations (57 percent) and police stations (50 percent) that have suffered a 100-year flood.
And West Virginia ties with Louisiana for the largest share of at-risk schools (38 percent) and commercial properties (37 percent).
“The geography and topography of the state results in many homes, roads and pieces of critical infrastructure being built along the rivers, indicating heavy flooding in the surrounding area,” said First Street spokesman Michael Lopes.
But topography isn’t the only thing that increases West Virginia’s risk of flooding. Surface mining for coal once absorbed rain, removing soil and vegetation before it reached streams and rivers, and pushing rocks and dirt into these waterways, rendering them unable to contain large volumes of water.
“As stream corridors fill with sediment and debris, there is less storage capacity,” said Nicolas Zegre, director of West Virginia University’s Mountain Hydrology Laboratory. “It takes less water to spill.”
flood, repair, repeat
The effects of the increased flooding can be seen where Mr. Manchin established his political career.
Just northeast of Farmington is Morgantown, where houses intersect at irregular angles in narrow streets that run down the hillsides. Mr. Manchin represented the city in the State Senate; it is also home to West Virginia University, from which he graduated.
In June, Morgantown had more than two inches of rain in less than an hour, according to Damien Davis, the city’s director of engineering and public works. It turned main street Patteson Drive into a river and reversed the sewer flow, pushing waste into basements.
It happened again in July: The city rained more than three inches in an hour, the Patteson became a river, and raw sewage flowed into the basements.
“We’ve never experienced anything like this before,” said Mr Davis.
Muhammet Arıtürk owns a small restaurant called Istanbul on Patteson Drive. It blocked its doors, but flooded his restaurant twice. “We tried to stop the water coming here, but we couldn’t,” he said.
A mile north, Mary Anne Marner lives in a white bungalow near a creek. The first flood sent sewage into her basement, ruining her husband’s recliner, among other damage.
“Sewer came out of the toilet bowl and the toilet,” he said. Ms. Marner and her husband replaced the recliner. Then the basement flooded again and the new seat came out.
State climate expert Kevin Law said the study showed “an increase in extreme precipitation in West Virginia” as a result of the changing climate.
‘It puts nothing but fear in it’
Twenty miles southeast is Tunnelton, where Dave Biggins owns a convenience store in a building built over an underground creek. Until recently, the creek rarely rose high enough to damage the foundation—perhaps once every ten years, Mr. Biggins guessed.
Then, two years ago, the equipment area under his store flooded three times in one year. That’s nothing compared to last month, when the remnants of Hurricane Ida left her store knee-deep in water and caused up to $80,000 in damage.
“From now on, every time you say it’s going to rain heavily, you’re left with nothing but fear,” said Mr Biggins, who lacked flood insurance.
To the east of Tunnelton is Terra Alta, one of Preston County’s highest towns. Heavy rains in September flooded Terra Alta’s town hall three inches inside and flooded a handful of basements in the town, according to mayor James Tasker.
“It’s coming through the wall,” said Mr. Tasker. “It’s our drainage system that we can’t afford to update.”
Half an hour south, Rowlesburg mayor Eric Bautista is trying to find money to rebuild the town’s old stormwater system that dumps raw sewage into the Cheat River during torrential downpours. “It’s a crappy system that gets extra lousy when it rains,” Mr. Bautista said.
According to Amanda Pitzer, executive director of Friends of the Cheat, an environmental nonprofit, the results go beyond the county.
“This water goes to Pittsburgh,” said Mrs. Pitzer, who was standing by the Cheat recently. “You have to think in the downside.”
‘This is the risk we are ready to take’
West Virginia established a state resilience office to help protect against future flooding, following a particularly severe flooding in June 2016.
But earlier this year, the head of that office left. He was replaced by his assistant Robert Martin Jr. took. hearing role before state legislators last month drinking water from the fire hose.
It wants to update the state’s flood protection plan. “It hadn’t been studied for about 20 years,” said Mr Martin. “A lot of things in it were really antique.”
Mr Martin did not respond to requests for comment. The state refused to have any officials involved in disaster recovery or resilience work available for discussion.
Democratic state senator Stephen Baldwin, whose district was devastated by flooding in 2016, said the state was moving too slowly. He said the recession reflected the political stigma associated with global warming.
“Nobody wants to talk about climate, which is the real driving factor here,” said Mr Baldwin.
Jamie Shinn, a geography professor at West Virginia University who focuses on adapting to climate change, said as the flooding worsens, West Virginia’s leaders, including Mr. Manchin, need to stop seeing the state’s identity as dependent on coal.
Dr. “I don’t think he’s advocating for the future economy and viability of this state,” Shinn said. “The state has a lot of potential beyond fossil fuels.”
This outlook remains a hard sell for many West Virginians despite repeated disasters.
“I am a huge advocate of using the natural resources we have,” said Jim Hall, a Farmington resident and cousin of Mr. Manchin.
Having to choose between burning less coal or suffering from worsening floods, worsening floods are less of a danger, he said.
“You can change a house,” said Mr. Hall. “That’s the risk we’re ready to take.”
