"valley Of 1,000 Tires" Under Three-day Siege By Cleanup Crew

By Rick Steelhammer For decades, a short stretch of the Big Coal River beneath the Corridor G Bridge between Southridge and the Lincoln County line has been a landing zone for scrap tires flung off the bridge deck by fly-by-night tire shop operators and other unscrupulous individuals.On Monday, a small army of Coal River Group volunteers, AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps participants, Department of Environmental Protection interns and state REAP program workers used an armada of eight canoes and jonboats to launch a three-day attack on the streambed eyesore known to Coal River kayakers as the "Valley of 1,000 Tires." "Once those tires are thrown off that bridge, they get silted in fast and stay put," said Chris Cartwright of the DEP's REAP program.