I want to share two things I read when we honored our predecessors in the work of this Guardians this week. First, this poem by Wendell Berry, poet, professor, and farmer on the banks of the Kentucky River which I think exemplifies what we as the Guardians are trying to do:
Work Song: Vision 2
If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow-growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it,
if we will make our seasons welcome here,
asking not too much of earth or heaven,
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides, fields and gardens
rich in the windows. The river will run
clear, as we will never know it,
and over it, birdsong like a canopy.
On the levels of the hills will be
green meadows, stock bells in noon shade.
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields.
In their voices they will hear a music
risen out of the ground. They will take nothing from
the ground they will not return,
whatever the grief at parting. Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its possibility.from: “Clearing” (1977), reprinted in “New Collected Poems” (2012)
and a letter from Don Barnhart, the major landowner of our largest remediation site on Lambert Run, who was not able to attend because he now lives in Maine:
Several years ago, I was approached by the WV Water Research Institute at WVU asking if they could use approximately 4 acres of land to build a natural filtering system for abandoned mine run off water adjacent to my property that had created a runoff into Lambert Run.
This land has been in the Garrett family since the 1800’s and over time has seen many environmental changes. We as human beings, are responsible for taking care of each other, as well as the animals, insects and plants that inhabit our land and drink the water.
I agreed to let the Institute use the land for this important project. I was glad I could be a small part of the big picture. I was also very interested to see how this natural filtering system would work.
After several years, I talked to a neighbor DOWN STREAM that said the water quality had improved and he could now see tadpoles in the water. This was very exciting for me to hear that the water quality had improved some. But there was more work to be done.
Over time the Institute has made improvements to Site 7. I was on site last April of 2025 to hear from the Institute and the WVDEP about the new plans for expansion in 2026. Now construction is underway to refine and expand the filtering process. Mills Langehans from the Institute is my contact person now and has done an outstanding job of keeping me in the project loop.
I would like to thank every Guardian of The West Fork, past and present, for their foresight, direction. perseverance and especially their valuable time and hard work to see this program through. Also I would like to thank the WV Water Research Institute at WVU for their development and implementation of this filtration system and the WVDEP for their support of this program. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Don Barnhart
Descendant of the Garrett Family
Guardians of the West Fork Watershed 