daily304 - Episode 12.27.2023
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English - December 27, 2023 08:00 - 3 minutes - 5.38 MB - ★★★★★ - 11 ratingsDaily News News almostheaven daily304 westvirginia yeswv Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.
Today is Wednesday, Dec. 27
Progress is coming along nicely on the new steel mill in Mason County. WV News and The State Journal names Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby “Public Servant of the Year.” And the WV Land Trust will manage a historic Monroe County Cave…on today’s daily304.
#1 – From WOWK-TV – The new steel mill coming to Mason County is moving into a new phase of construction.
According to Nucor Steel, the upcoming phase of construction will include pile driving and starting the underground utility installations and foundations.
In October, Nucor and the Mason County community broke the Guinness World Record for the most people to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony, with 545 people grabbing a shovel to make history.
Construction for the new facility is expected to take two to three years. Once it’s completed, hundreds of jobs will be brought to Mason County.
Read more:
#2 – From WV NEWS – For her efforts and successes in selling West Virginia as the place to be, Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby has been named WV News/The State Journal’s Public Servant of the Year.
“Chelsea has the skills and the energy to help West Virginia reach its full potential in the tourism industry,” said Gov. Jim Justice when he appointed Ruby to the position shortly after he won the 2016 election. “She knows how to think big, and I look forward to working with her to increase tourism in our state. My goal is to make tourism an economic driver and bring jobs to West Virginia.”
Over the course of nearly seven years, during which time Ruby’s office became a cabinet-level position named the West Virginia Department of Tourism, the strategy has proven successful.
Visitors to the state directly spent $5.3 billion in 2022, an all-time high, according to data from Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company that measures tourism spending and economic impact.
The tourism industry now supports more than 53,000 West Virginia jobs, one out of every 16 in the state, which account for nearly $2 billion in annual income.
Read more:
#3 – From GAZETTE-MAIL – The West Virginia Land Trust has assumed management of a historic Monroe County cave system.
The cave was once mined for saltpeter by pioneer settlers and Confederate soldiers. Saltpeter is a key component in the making of gunpowder. The cave now provides habitat for at least two endangered bat species.
Partial funding for the preserve was made available as habitat impact mitigation arising from construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The new, 298-acre Greenville Saltpeter Cave Preserve encompasses its namesake limestone cavern, which contains nearly 4 miles of mapped passages.
The preserve, to be managed in cooperation with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will be the first site in the Mountain State where a promising experimental treatment designed to reduce bats’ vulnerability to white-nose syndrome will be deployed.
While the cave is expected to remain closed to the public for a number of years, the surface portion of the preserve may be open for public hiking, bird-watching, nature study and photography after the DNR’s UV-C project is completed.
Read more:
Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304.
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That’s all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.