Appalachia

Southwest Virginia is rich with natural springs. People have long visited here for the mineral baths. But there’s also a long history of people who live here getting their drinking water from these natural springs.

But a new study finds 80% of springs surveyed are contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria.

It’s no secret the coal economy is changing, and as it declines, so do the livelihoods of people and families who’ve worked in the industry for generations. Now, coal states across the country are working together on a community driven, economic transition for the people and places where coal was once king.

In 1962, a 35-year-old physicist from Kentucky became president of the university we know today as Virginia Tech. The late Marshall Hahn was a maverick, who brought change to a mostly male, mostly white, southwestern Virginia military school.

Hahn died in 2016. His daughters live on the family property, much of which has been protected from development by conservation easements, which the family put in place decades ago. 

The vast region that comprises Appalachia is known for its abundance of water. High mountain ridges here function like ‘water towers’ holding moisture from the atmosphere and sending it down into rivers, streams and aquifers, ultimately quenching the thirst of millions of people beyond its borders.  But a new study finds that climate change could have a strange and devastating effect on this ancient system.

Virginia has one of the lowest cancer rates in the country, but in some parts of the Commonwealth, for a certain form of cancer, the rate is among the highest.