New River bracing for impact

With across-the-board cuts in federal spending expected to begin Friday with the sequester, those with the New River Gorge National River are bracing for impact.

Acting superintendent at the park Debbie Darden said the first thing they will be doing is cutting back on anything that is not considered essential.

“Travel, training, printing, those kinds of things stop immediately,” said Darden.

Along with that, Darden expects less summer and seasonal workers to be hired. In an average year, the park will hire anywhere from 25 to 30 seasonals.

“This would mean that nine of those, about a third of those seasonals, we would not be able to hire,” said Darden.

This would be a big hit to the 70,000 acre park which relies heavily on providing a high level of service for visitors.

Less seasonal workers means less Visitor Use Assistants. Fewer Visitor Use Assistants, Darden said, means Park Rangers would have to pick up the extra workload of performing the assistant’s duties.

“They come around to the campgrounds, they register you, they pick up the trash, they provide information, they drop the river people off where they get in the river and pick them up when they come off,” said Darden.

In addition to hiring fewer workers, Darden adds that portions of the park could remain closed for the summer.

Darden said Thurmond would remain closed and certain parts of Grandview.

“People could still go to Grandview, they could still go to the picnic shelters, they could still go to the playgrounds,” said Darden. “The visitor contact station itself would be closed.”

The theater inside Grandview would also not be impacted in any way.

In addition to the New River Gorge National River, the Gauley River National Recreation Area and the Bluestone National Scenic River would be impacted in some way as well by the cuts.

Darden said many facets of the operation will be impacted by the changes because everyone will take a portion of the cut.

Darden adds that the only way the impact could be lessened at the park is if they were able to find enough people to volunteer.

Body Found in River Identified as Missing Man

PIKE COUNTY, Ky -- Kentucky State Police have identified the man's body found in the Tug Fork River in South Williamson, Ky.

The body has been identified as 41-year-old Chad Roberts of Rawl, W.Va.

Last month, police said that Roberts was last seen about midnight on January 3 near the Harvey Street Bridge which crosses the Tug Fork River between Williamson, W.Va. and Pike County, Ky.

Williamson Police Chief Dave Rockel said that Roberts had been drinking and riding an ATV with a friend when he got off the ATV because he was feeling sick. When his friend came back to pick him up, Roberts was gone.

KSP did not release how Roberts died.

Two Women Arrested in Undercover Drug Buy

BOYD COUNTY, Ky. -– Two women are facing drug charges after an undercover investigation Thursday afternoon.

Boyd County Deputies say Mary E. McCann, 55, and Bonnie J. Triplett, 59, both from Ironton, Ohio, bought 10 Oxycodone pills from informants at a restaurant on Winchester Avenue in Ashland.

Before McCann and Triplett could leave, deputies said they stopped the women and found more pills and money.

McCann and Triplett were taken to the Boyd County Detention Center.

Both women are charged with trafficking. McCann is also charged with possession.

Property owners would have more time under House bill

The House of Delegates Judiciary Committee passed a bill Thursday that would give property owners more time to protest an increase in property tax assessments when they are notified by the county assessor.

The bill, (HB2585), would increase the time property owners have to file a protest once they are notified from the current five days to eight business days. The original bill called for 15 business days but was changed after a group of assessors reviewed the bill.

Property owners are notified when the assessments go up by 10 percent or more which then increases taxes. Property owners in a number of counties have complained about significant increases in recent years and very little time to file a protest with the local county assessor’s office.

The bill now heads to the House Finance Committee for consideration.

Pipeline safety bill passes House of Delegates

A bill that would increase state fines for pipeline safety violations is moving to the state Senate following is overwhelming approval in the House of Delegates Thursday.

Delegates approved the measure on a 91-7 vote and sent it to the state Senate.

The current fine levels used by the state Public Service Commission have been the same since 1969.

The move is in response to last December’s natural gas line explosion near Sissonville in Kanawha County, but the proposed changes would not have applied in that incident.

The PSC only has power to issue civil penalties on pipelines that both begin and end in West Virginia. The Sissonville line, owned by Columbia Gas Transmission, traveled from here to other states.

The Sissonville explosion destroyed homes and a section of Interstate 77. The NTSB is continuing its investigation into the blast.

The governor’s bill raises the state’s civil penalties to the same level as federal penalties.

Fines for violations cannot exceed $200,000 per day per violation under the terms of the bill. The current fine level is up to $1,000 a day. The bill says the maximum civil penalty can be up to $2 million for a series of violations. The cap is currently $200,000.

A company that’s been fined would not be able to pass along the increased cost to customers.

State tax returns slow coming in

The West Virginia Tax Dept. has not been swamped with state tax returns to this point.

State Revenue Secretary Charles Lorensen told members of the House of Delegates Finance Committee Thursday that as of Monday, Feb. 25, the dept. had processed 5,000 fewer returns than a year ago at this time but there is no delay in processing.

Sec. Lorensen says the delay is in the actual filing of the returns. He says you probably have to look no further than Congress for the reasons why.

“Given the fact of the fiscal cliff negotiations and the fact the feds would not accept returns for processing until Feb. 1—the behavior is probably pushed back in terms of filing,” Lorensen said.

The tax dept. expects to get a lot busier very soon.

“There will be a point, probably very soon, where there are backlogs in processing but for the most part there is no processing backlog,” according to Lorensen.

The state does have a Refund Reserve Account. Sec. Lorensen says it hasn’t been used so far.

“But that’s not necessarily going to be the case throughout the entire filing season,” he said.

State revenue collections continue to lag behind estimates. Lorensen says said they may miss the mark by as much as $45 million when the fiscal year ends June 30.

Kanawha County home invasion leaves one hurt

A home invasion in Kanawha County sends one woman to the hospital.

Kanawha County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a call around 3:30 Thursday afternoon to a home on Miller Road in Pinch.

Deputies said a family member found a 74 year old woman unconscious with serious injuries. She was transported to the hospital.

Deputies said the woman’s home was ransacked.

The woman’s name and current condition has not been released as the investigation continues.