Judge rejects bid to preserve site of coalfield battle

West Virginia's Blair Mountain, the site of the largest armed conflict in U.S. labor history, will remain off the National Register of Historic Places, a federal judge has ruled. The site was added to the list in 2009, but the Interior Department removed it after it was found that a majority of property owners didn't support the listing, Paul Nyden of The Charleston Gazette reports.

Coal companies may mine the area, and a lawsuit was filed in 2010 by several groups, including the Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Friends of Blair Mountain, seeking to restore the area to the register. Judge Reggie Walton of the District of Columbia ruled that the groups had no legal standing because no coal companies had announced "immediate plans to begin mining on Blair Mountain," Nyden reports. (Read more)

Ken Ward Jr. of the Gazette's Coal Tattoo puts it this way: "The judge ruled that the citizen groups could not meet one of the requirements to show 'standing' to bring the case, that of 'redressability,' or that a favorable ruling from the court would redress their injury." As a result, the judge said in his decision "that the surface mining would be permitted on the Blair Mountain Battlefield as a result of permits that were acquired prior to the historic district's inclusion on the National Register."

In 1921, more than 10,000 union miners fought with armed company employees and contractors along the ridge along the Logan-Boone County border for a number of things, including better working conditions. The battle lasted eight days, and only ended after federal troops and air support intervened.

Residents of former coal camp being evicted to make way for Hatfield-McCoy trail development

People living in the small community of Rita in Logan County, W.Va., may be evicted to make way for businesses catering to the all-terrain vehicle trails named for the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Residents were given notice last week by DB Land LLC of Dodge City, Kan., that their rental agreements would be terminated Oct. 1, and they must remove themselves and their property from the area, Martha Sparks of the Logan Banner reports. Most of the residents are elderly, disabled or low-income.

Logan Banner photo: Spears' home

Resident Russell Spears told Sparks before DB Land owned the area, the coal company that mined there allowed them to stay as long as they paid $200 a month rent and completed all maintenance. The company gave residents the option to keep their houses, or have them torn down and replaced with mobile homes, which almost everyone did, Spears said. He said when DB Land bought the area, company representative Mike Cline initially told residents they would be allowed to buy their lots, but the company changed course and decided to build a motel and convenience store that would cater to the ATV trail system, Spears said. (Read more)

The Hatfield and McCoy trails system was created by the state legislature to generate economic development through tourism in nine southern West Virginia counties. There are six trail systems that featured 500 miles of off-road trails in five counties in 2009, one of them connecting sites related to the notorious feud, the subject of a recent cable-TV miniseries. According to the system's website, "community connecting trails" are offered to visitors which allows them to access "'ATV-friendly towns' to experience the charm of southern West Virginia."

Budget cuts have put strain on national parks, and seem likely to put even more

National parks have been struggling for more than a decade against a tide of federal budget cuts that have left them short-staffed and with little money for upkeep and repairs. Construction and maintenance projects have been put on hold, and Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post reports "the signs of strain" are starting to show at parks across the country. (Photo: Gettysburg National Military Park)

Chatham Manor, the 241-year-old Georgian house that was a Union headquarters near Fredericksburg, Va., during the Civil War, is marred by overgrown gardens and a greenhouse with broken windows and rotting wood frames. The 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway, which stretches from Virginia to North Carolina, has a $385 million backlog of projects and hasn't been able to fill 75 positions since 2003. New Mexico's Bandelier National Monument doesn't have money to hire someone to protect its archeological ruins.

Eilperin reports parks have been pulling from maintenance and acquisition budgets to run day-to-day operations for years. National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis told Eilperin his employees have been "entrepreneurial" in finding ways around budget cuts, but are "kind of running out of ideas at some point here." Park managers say they are scared about next year's federal budget and what might happen if a budget deal isn't reached by January. The current proposal from the House Appropriations Committee would cut 218 full-time jobs or 763 seasonal employees at the parks. (Read more)