Creston continues to be the land of ice & snow although the weekend did bring warmer weather. John Griffin was able to plow off the snow at the Community Building for the meal after the Pat Nida service so folks didn’t get stuck. Some local roads were kept clean but others were not. Moral of the story, keep supplies on hand.
Debbie Griffin continues a slow recovery after her “vacation” at the Cleveland Clinic.
Roane County sent a road grader to plow the road down into Lower Barnes Run and the grader man forgot about a big rock in the road. The road grader was “thrown” over the hill requiring a major extrication effort. The W. Va. 5 bridge in Creston is now full of holes, just like a section of W. Va. 2 in Wheeling.
Local folks are still getting calls about new plans for medicare and medicaid. Some of the calls indicate that they are coming from legitimate businesses.
The State Tax Department has been sending out tax increase letters. It was said that 5,000 were sent for a nearby county. Seems that the big “surplus” that Justice claimed now cannot be found and the new team is talking about deficits and what to do. Also it is reported that some are “miffed” since they lost their “stroke”.
Folks were told to be careful not to lose the tax form MV-1 which allows one a state tax deduction for motor vehicles. One local fellow received 14 of the forms on Saturday. One, from Jackson County, noted that the local fellow would not get a credit for his Cadillac XT-5 [that he never owned] as taxes were not timely paid. One thing for sure, our W. Va. State Tax Department has it “together”.
It was reported that Sec. Of State Chris Warner was calling in Elizabeth last week.
FedEx was out making deliveries on Sunday. Some had been waiting weeks for shipments.
The comely Kim Mowrey who had been recuperating at her mother’s home returned to resume her employment at the FBI Center.
Local folks, like folks elsewhere, are watching with wonder at the new administration’s “Shock & Awe” operations. Seeing illegal aliens rounded up and put on planes for deportation makes one sleep better. The criminal with 17 counts who said he “Wasn’t going back” should be a regular campaign poster for 2026 &2028. The lecture to the one worlders at Davos was classic. As one of them said, “He won and we lost”.
West Virginia now has primacy for CO2 injection wells in the state although presently there are none. These injection wells are called Class VI wells and in other states there have been problems with them. With the ending of the “new green scam” there is some question about the future of such.
The power grid operator (for W. Va. Pennsylvania, Ohio & other nearby states) reported that on January 22 there was the greatest power draw ever as a result of the cold weather. Natural gas provided 42.5%, coal 22.9%, oil 3%, nuclear 24.5% with wind & solar providing 4.46%.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil is $73.66/bbl. Although locally almost no oil has been shipped because of the condition of “back roads” and lease roads. Condensate is $55.66/bbl. While Marcellus & Utica light is $62.66/bbl. It seems that one local operator sold crude oil & paid the condensate price. One needs to look at the detail on the check. The NYMEX price of natural gas jumped to $4.258/MMBTU, the highest price since December 2022.
