We all want better roads. But better roads should not — nor do they need to — come at the sacrifice of community and local business.
Recently, the proposed roundabout at the intersection of Green Bag Road, Kingwood Pike and Dorsey Avenue caught my attention. The DOH solution to some rush hour backup at the current light is to build a roundabout on the farm land at that corner.
To learn more, I called Ted Hastings, whose family has owned the land for generations. Ted explained the roundabout would slice into land he has worked for years. “I do all organic practices, I have 8 or 10 inches of top soil in some places,” Ted said.
He’s been amending the soil for eight years with homemade compost from local restaurant kitchen scraps, wood ash, wood chips and other natural fertilizers — one truck load at a time.
Adding to his family’s history working that particular land, Ted and his sisters grow hemp for CBD.
“We make hemp products, and we sell them locally and regionally and nationally,” Ted said — the business is Joy and Hemp Universal LLC.
They have permits for an acre of hemp. Last year, they grew 800 plants and this year 1,200, valued (affirmed in court during a property damage case last year according to Ted) at $500 each. They plan to continue expanding their business, in which case they would hire employees for growing and processing the hemp.
In addition to their own farming, the Hastings family hosts the Conscious Harvest Cooperative (which is 501c3 nonprofit) and Mockingbird Hill Farm.
Strangely, the environmental assessment states that the roundabout will impact no business and that impact on farming will be inconsequential. The assessment fails to list the corner of land Ted and his family farm as productive and assesses the impact on the community garden as minimal.
Ted told me that if the DOH takes the land he’s been working, he will no longer have space to donate to the community garden.
The very real impact and consequence will fall on our least fortunate community members. Conscious Harvest donates produce it grows to those in need. “We take the money from the community garden, and buy CSA shares [from Mountain Harvest Farm] for people with lower incomes,” Ted said.
The assessment also contends that the farm lacks historical significance. Ted said the assessment misidentifies the farm, which should be noted as the Dorsey’s Farm, with original structures still standing (including a spring house and farm house the Dorsey family used).
Ted said archeologically significant pre-historic items were found on neighboring Kennedy Center property and added, “we found a Civil War cannonball” and a Civil War-era button.
“That whole environmental assessment is not correct, and the public is commenting on it now,” Ted said. Comments can be submitted online or via mail. Information for filing is available on the Department of Transportation website. Ted said he hopes community members will write in to ask for halting this project and to substitute turn lanes added to Green Bag Road instead.
I just can’t understand why our elected officials — from the Morgantown city level up to the governor — support this project moving forward, especially considering the repair needs of so many roads.
Agriculture faces many challenges in the usual course of events, and the pandemic has contributed additional strain on small businesses. Now, the Hastings family has to spend money on attorney fees and expert witnesses to simply try to protect land that is supporting a business and local agriculture serving the community.
