Mike Tony

The company’s state air quality permit granted in August 2025 is real. The environmental health fears from the company’s estimated up-to-nearly-100-ton-per-year emissions of nitrogen oxide that can harm the human respiratory system and contribute to acid rain have been real. The website for the Purcellville, Virginia-based company, Fundamental Data LLC, at fundamentaldata answers the question “Is the project moving forward?” for its planned, massive Eastern West Virginia data center infrastructure complex with a “Yes[.]” But the project is “still in the conceptual phase,” the West Virginia Department of Commerce concluded in a letter to Fundamental Data backing down from the department’s June 18, 2026 issuance of a violation notice to the company that had set a deadline for the company to apply for state certification required for high-impact data center and microgrid projects. The letter signed by Nicholas Preservati, Department of Commerce deputy secretary and state Office of Energy director, accepts Fundamental Data’s assertion that the project is “still in the conceptual phase” and that there is a possibility that the power and data components of the project that has been expected to span Tucker and Grant counties won’t implicate House Bill 2014. HB 2014 is the law governing large-scale data center and microgrid projects the Department of Commerce originally said the company was violating.

Federal regulators have determined a safety failure from a Marshall County mine operator with a lengthy history of health and safety violations caused an April 3, 2026 incident that left a mine worker dead. The United States Mine Safety and Health Administration on Wednesday released its final report on the incident that left Darin Ory Reece, 36, of Prosperity, Pennsylvania dead, finding that it occurred because mine operator Ohio County Coal Resources, Inc. didn’t develop written policies and procedures addressing repairs to equipment. The incident took place at the company owned- and operated-Ohio County Mine, an underground bituminous coal mine near the Marshall County community of Dallas that the MSHA said employs 462 miners.

The lien notices filed Thursday with the Greenbrier County clerk come as the two businesses, the Greenbrier Hotel Corp. and Greenbrier Clinic, face federal lawsuits alleging systemic failures in financial management and patient health assessments, respectively, with the Greenbrier Hotel Corp. operating under threat of takeover via court-appointed receivership.

West Virginia Public Service Commission meetings slated for July 2026 are poised to shape the state’s energy future. The meetings will inform the PSC as the agency, whose far-reaching power determines how much West Virginians pay for theirs, considers long-term energy sources proposed and projected by the state’s electric monopoly utilities to further swell long-distending consumer bills. On July 15, 2026, the PSC will hold a public comment hearing on a proposal by FirstEnergy subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison for construction of a roughly $2.47 billion gas-fired power plant in Monongalia County and three solar projects to cost another $182 million, followed by an evidentiary hearing on July 16 and potentially July 17 on the proposal. On July 20, 2026 and, if needed, July 21, 2026, the PSC will hold an evidentiary hearing to consider a long-term energy resource plan, called an Integrated Resource Plan, filed by American Electric Power subsidiaries Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power that would prioritize clinging to increasingly costly coal as easily the most dominant fuel source in the companies’ portfolio. The Integrated Resource Plans, known as IRPs, feature economic scenarios in which the companies account for potential future market circumstances and regulatory mandates to determine their optimal long-term energy portfolios.

Officials' answers have been greatly limited about the public health implications of a massive industrial fire that caused Gov. Patrick Morrisey to declare a State of Emergency Sunday afternoon as a thick plume of black smoke registering on weather radar emerged from warehouse provider Peoples Cartage's site just outside Parkersburg.

Google and Microsoft reshaped the digital landscape. Now the environmental impacts emerging from the data center-linked projects those companies are behind in Putnam and Mason counties, respectively, threaten to reshape West Virginia’s landscape by building across and eroding it. The United States Army Corps of Engineers has published notice of an application from Richmond, Virginia-based commercial real estate attorney Carl Bivens on behalf of Google affiliate Cumulus Group LLC for a Department of the Army permit to discharge dredged or fill material into federally overseen waters for a “Project Avalon.” The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, meanwhile, has issued Monarch Cloud Campus a string of violations in recent weeks.

“Without trying to cause alarm, this is a little scary.” That's how Dana Kuhnline, program director at ReImagine Appalachia , a nonpartisan

Leave it to President Donald Trump and Gov. Patrick Morrisey to take America's 250th birthday celebration and turn it into a tiresome tribute to their own hubris.

West Virginia Public Service Commission meetings slated for July 2026 are poised to shape the state’s energy future. The meetings will inform the PSC as the agency, whose far-reaching power determines how much West Virginians pay for theirs, considers long-term energy sources proposed and projected by the state’s electric monopoly utilities to further swell long-distending consumer bills. On July 15, 2026, the PSC will hold a public comment hearing on a proposal by FirstEnergy subsidiaries Mon Power and Potomac Edison for construction of a roughly $2.47 billion gas-fired power plant in Monongalia County and three solar projects to cost another $182 million, followed by an evidentiary hearing on July 16 and potentially July 17 on the proposal. On July 20, 2026 and, if needed, July 21, 2026, the PSC will hold an evidentiary hearing to consider a long-term energy resource plan, called an Integrated Resource Plan, filed by American Electric Power subsidiaries Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power that would prioritize clinging to increasingly costly coal as easily the most dominant fuel source in the companies’ portfolio. The Integrated Resource Plans, known as IRPs, feature economic scenarios in which the companies account for potential future market circumstances and regulatory mandates to determine their optimal long-term energy portfolios.

Findings of financial disclosure failures have landed the business empire of Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., in trouble in two federal courts as it