CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A trailblazer in keeping a Kanawha County River clear and clean is retiring.
Co-founder and 24-year veteran of the Coal River Group, Bill Currey, was honored last week by the Kanawha County Commission for the work he did to help clean up the Coal River.
Currey co-founded the Coal River Group in 2002 when he and his friends discovered trash and tires in the river during a fishing trip and purposed to do something about it.
Currey says that the non-profit organization stemmed from a few people just wanting to help clean the river.
“We started out, we were a group of businessmen, and we said, ‘We don’t want to be marching, we don’t want to be an advocate for anything, we just want to clean the river up,” Currey said.
Kanawha County Commission President Lance Wheeler says Currey and his nonprofit checks multiple boxes in helping Kanawha County.
“This is environmentalism. This is giving amenities to the residents here that live in West Virginia and Kanawha County, and this is economic development,” Wheeler said. “Those are those three boxes that I always talk about, and you were able to, in the last 20 years to be able to check off and starting from scratch. This was a new idea; it was a challenging idea.”
Currey is also known for co-founding the Tour de Coal float that brings hundreds to the Coal River each year. The Tour de Coal has been an event that brings kayakers every year, but since 2018, the event has been paired with Yak Fest, where vendors and live music comes to the area during the week of the Tour de Coal.
Wheeler says it impressed him that Currey not only helped the environment, but also brought economic opportunity to the area.
“You and what Coal River Group is doing, helping not just clean up the river and doing something that was good for the environment, for the people of Kanawha County, for the people of West Virginia, but you were bringing economic opportunity with the Tour de Coal. Wheeler said.”
Wheeler and the rest of the Kanawha County Commissioners joked that they wanted to deny Currey’s request to retire because of how valuable he is.
While Currey has provided value to the Coal River, Kanawha County, and the state as a whole, he has said the Coal River Group will remain as strong as it has been.