BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — Pete Runyon, founder of Friends of the Tug Fork River, wants to partner with Martin County to secure state funding during the 2024 Kentucky Legislative session to repair boat ramps at Huntleyville and Mount Sterling along Route 292 in Martin County. He attended a Martin County Fiscal Court meeting Nov. 21 and announced his hope to Judge/Executive Lon Lafferty and the magistrates.
“My life’s passion is I like to fish,” the 67-year-old Runyon shared with court members.
According to Runyon, what started as a fishing page has 19,000 followers and has become a 5013c nonprofit.
“I never had a Facebook page in my life, didn’t know anything about it,” he said.
Friends of the Tug Fork River is known for removing 13,340 tires from the Tug River since 2019.
Speaking of the boat ramps at Huntleyville Park and Mount Sterling, Runyon said, “I had never really floated that until this year. Well, I’m happy to tell you that the first float I did, which was by accident, my partner and I caught 80 bass – 80 in three months. Beautiful fish everywhere.”
Runyon described muskie 2-3 feet in length.
“That’s really just icing on the cake,” he said. “Most people my age remember the Tug Fork River when it ran black. We remember when the water got up that everyone dumped their trash in, but that’s no longer the river we have.”
Runyon said most of the 13,340 tires that his group has removed from the river were in the Matewan and Williamson area, but 851 were in Warfield.
“Mr. [Ronald] Workman, the mayor there at the time, was very helpful in doing that,” commented Runyon. “And your code officer got some inmates to help us. We pulled out 851 tires in one day in Warfield. Now that sounds like a heck of a lot of tires, and it really is, but the first year we did it, we pulled out 2,321 in a third of a mile stretch.”
The West Virginia DEP has been Friends of the Tug Fork River’s partner.
“Kentucky has not had to do anything,” stated Runyon.
West Virginia brings the equipment, trailers and trucks and hauls the tires off.
“All we have to have is the volunteers,” said Runyon.
“This year, we got 1,062 in the same stretch,” said Runyon, adding that the issue is not that people are still throwing tires into the river. “Most of these tires are decades old … They’re in layers.”
According to Runyon, the stretch of river between Huntleyville and Mount Sterling has “quite a few tires in it.” He has requested the West Virginia DEP remove those tires.
“That’s no cost to Martin County. You can send us a few of the inmates and some helpers, but we want to clean that up,” he said, adding that there is an access issue at Huntleyville and Mount Sterling as the bottoms of both boat ramps have eroded.
Runyon said that his group is not an environmental agency, “but we want a clean area.”
He added, “Ninety percent of the people do the right thing. It’s 10% or less that do 100% of the polluting.”
Lafferty thanked Runyon, saying, “We will be getting on these grants, and we appreciate you being here.”
After the meeting, Runyon explained, “The ramps are still usable to an extent but need to be repaired. Now is the perfect time to address this need with state representatives elected to represent Martin County and hopefully get the green light on money to make this project possible.”
Runyon has communicated with Nathan Alexander from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet about possible funding and looks forward to seeing county officials take action.
“So many things could happen if tire cleanups are successful and the ramps are repaired. The possibilities are great. Martin County has some of the best fishing spots in the entire Tug Valley area… We need to strike while the iron is hot.”
(Rachel Dove contributed to this story.)