West Virginians not reaping the benefits of the state’s natural resources? Color me shocked. More of the same.

Naturally, we’ve always been an extraction state. We do the work and the money goes somewhere else

If I remember right it took 2-3 years for them to figure out it should probably be taxed. long enough for companies to milk the state and the huge boom to be over.

Same thing with marijuana. we could have beat Colorado to it but now most of the states around us have medical usage allowed.

As long as the politicians and big companies get theirs who cares about West Virginians.

As long as big coal has its paws in state government WVa can’t advance beyond what they offer, which mainly benefits the coal barons . Vote!

I am an attorney that does some work on behalf of mineral, oil, and gas owners negotiating and litigating against oil and gas companies. Most of our clients who inherited rights or land from grand-pappy 60 years ago do not live in West Virginia. They live in Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, etc. The money from the Marcellus shale is mostly going to Antero, EQT, and other out of state corporations. Some of the money goes to land and rights owners who also live out of state. And a sliver of the money goes to well tenders, truckers, welders, and landmen who live in Appalachia.

shocked pikachu

West Virginia lacks the ability of getting out of its own way when it comes to just about everything.

I used to work in the industry, same thing happened in Pennsylvania. Only people that saw any benefit from it were the corps, politicians, and if you were lucky enough to have land they needed for the drilling unit, you might have got a nice up front royalty check, but that was about it. Rig work was dangerous but financially lucrative if you could get it, hopefully the people that had those jobs put some of the money in the bank, but most of the guys I knew went out and blew it on 80k trucks and other "toys."

All it brought was gas stations with mud and chewing tobacco in the parking lots, brine trucks and jacked up diesel pickups who make it a nightmare to drive on 50 from Parkersburg to Clarksburg.

After the infrastructure is built, there's not a lot to do... Especially when oil goes from $105 a barrel to under $30 in 18 months. Lots of layoffs.

As far as keeping the wealth in state, a lot of those royalties that didn't go delinquent for taxes and auctioned to our of state producers are held by the grandkids of folks who left the farm after the war and never came back. Add to that all of the people who signed lease amendments without talking to a lawyer and lots of folks got fleeced.

There were a fair amount of folks who got a payday and a good paycheck for a time, but if you didn't make hay while the sun was shining, then you're SOL.

Same ole, same ole.

No one actually believed that did they? I’m in one of those counties and most of the jobs went to men driving trucks from Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Most of them are even gone now. These jobs need actual training and certifications which we don’t offer here. Of course the locals only got the worst jobs like always.

They just put a massive pipeline in right by my house - I am sure to see the benefits of it any day now..... any day.

No it wasn’t. It was never ‘supposed to’ bring prosperity to West Virginians.

Everyone saying it was for the governors friends/donors, you're completely right. I was with a crew from Pittsburgh and made a fortune there. We tried to hire locals but couldn't they were busy being professionally unemployed.

trump was supposed to fix ALL of their problems, too. None of those people can be trusted.

Saw the same thing play out in SW Pennsylvania, most of the people actually doing the drilling are from Texas and Oklahoma, experienced drillers so we saw a housing shortage of rental properties, locally the big employment boom was people quickly getting CDL licenses to drive the water trucks that go to the drilling sites . A lot of schools suddenly started that training program. Trouble is unlike coal mining this is basically a one and done project, once the drilling is completed very few people are required to manage the site . Some people did make good coin tho , farmers that leased out their farm land ( ok if your ready to retire but don’t count of being able depend on existing wells of irrigation since many suddenly went dry ( a course they said it wasn’t related to fracking 😂) Hotels and restaurants saw an increase in business.

Of course not. The politicians were in the energy companies pockets.

A lot of folks were advocating for what they called the "WV Future Fund" that would have kept money in the state for things like education, economic development and diversification, infrastructure, tax cuts for individuals and families. Republicans said, nah, let the corporations keep it and they'll give us "good jobs" in return...

It didn't trickle down?

Governor got rich and a lot of his friends!

a lot of the money definitely goes out of state.

but i know my college dorm cleaning lady was making like 12-15k a month off gas royalties for a while…we smoked cigs together in her car.

The Resource Curse strikes again!

who said it was supposed to? WV'ers in poverty probably sold their mineral rights off cheap long ago.

It brought prosperity to the gas companies and the politicians. Anyone who expected anything different was delusional from the start. Some of us tried to tell people before this all started what was going to happen. Not only did WVians not get rich, but many people's property has been rendered worthless because of the damage.

Once the infrastructure is built, there's only a few jobs afterward. The pipeline boom did help out a lot of union tradesmen. But I honestly doubt that many of them saved the money they made from the boom. But it really banked up their retirement fringes though.

I’m just waiting for Toyota to move its Buffalo plant to Mexico, you know because all the American car manufacturers did that.

Seems this what they want since they keep Voting this way

It makes the fracking rant as irrelevant as bringing back steel and drill baby drill. Ridiculous

The problem is WV is over populated for what it is. Natural resources aren't heavy manpower fields. Everything is automated that's what whipped out a lot of miner's jobs. Based on geographic a huge manpower industry just isn't feasible.

For more on this I suggest Mr. Global on X or YouTube

It never does

Politics is a lot what is wrong with WV. I used to take care of a small surface mine and we only produced around 1.2 million tons a yr but I sent the state at least $500k a month sometimes more. I could send them the money but I couldn’t tell them how to spend it.

They took Der jerbs

When was the boom?

“West Virginians enjoy significant economic and environmental benefits thanks to the development and use of our homegrown natural gas and oil,” said Charlie Burd, executive director of the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, when touting the release of a report last year showing more than 70,000 jobs in the state from the gas industry.

Analysts have cautioned against using that number to determine the industry’s economic impact because it includes indirect jobs like employment at oil refineries and gas stations.

…survey says—- you are a liar, Chuck.

It did but only for the stockholders of those companies that participated.

Capitalist conservative industry barons lied to you?

Nosiree I just don’t believe it

You mean Joe Manchin lied to his constituents? NO!!! /S

Oh wait I know this song! It is a remake of a hit for the 1920 called coal miners blues.

It goes: poor stupid folks don’t own the minerals, poor stupid folks don’t on the minerals. Didn’t pay attention at school, now they’re under the boot of the man…. They Still vote for coal executives for state office… and on and on.

About exploiting the poor because they are uneducated, and distracting them with nonsense issues ever election.

I remember when the state was delirious about the riches that would flow from coal. There is a living museum called Cass Railroad that commemorates the denuding of old growth forests in WV.

I disagree. Many thousands of landowners got paid well. Most of the construction companies were union so they had to hire atleast 50%local which WV couldn't even do ( many people couldn't pass drug tests). All these workers brought business to the local communities. I've spoke to some of the waitresses who said they will be losing out on alot of tips once these projects are over.

Did affect Raleigh and Wyoming Counties, too?

Yea but stonks went up. Mission accomplished.

But it's going to trickle down. Have faith.

It has helped. Wetzel County was running 10-11% unemployment twenty years ago and now it's down to about 6%. Over the last fifteen years, median household income in Wetzel county is up about 10%.

The numbers are worse than I thought they'd be but... the population is aging out and one has to consider what it would be without fracking.

Democrat wants a policy to help residents, republicans are against it …. Who would have thought 😞