June 13, 2025 - When Bill Currey sits on the porch of the Coal River Group’s headquarters at Meadowood Park, he can scarcely believe what he and three good friends created. This Saturday will be the organization’s 24th float trip known as the Tour De Coal. It’s expected more than 2,000 kayaks and canoes will be on the water of the Coal River Saturday for the event. It’s a sizeable upgrade from the 44 boats which made the first one in 2001.

“I think we charged them two dollars just as a donation. It was just so much fun and now after 24 years, we’re the largest flatwater, kayak event in the United States,” laughed Currey proudly at his organization’s accomplishments.

The original goal of the Coal River Group was to clean up what had been historically a dirty river with a terrible reputation. Before Currey and his group got involved, nobody would have even considered going close to the Coal River much less riding it in a kayak. But Currey knew the potential for the river as a tourist and economic draw to the region. He knew it would require a change in attitude and a buy-in by locals. He set the wheels in motion to start he change.

“Four of us who started this organization, we had a picture which said, ‘We’re not environmentalists, we’re businessmen cleaning up a river,” said Currey of one of the group’s early slogans.

Currey and the group didn’t blame anyone for the river’s issues, they simply set out to solve them one by one.

Currey got to know power brokers in Charleston. He visited with the DEP. He spoke to the state’s Congressional Delegation and tapped into every available grant and funding stream which he could find to help the program along. Slowly, but surely, sewer plants started to be built and historically poor water quality started to make major improvements. Trash was removed from the waterway and the Tour De Coal became the weekend to let the hard work shine.

“It’s an economic boom and it’s so much fun to have seen it develop and help it develop over all these years,” he laughed.

The Tour De Coal draws river enthusiasts from all over the country to float the eight miles from Tornado to St. Albans. It’s not a difficult float and anybody can do it. The group provides shuttle service, normally on Friday night and boats are left in the vast field at the park to be put into the water in orderly fashion on Saturday morning. Others join the trip by putting in elsewhere and hurrying to the park’s water front to join the large flotilla moving downstream.

Currey’s group not only forged the recovery of the Coal River, it struck the template as to how it’s done and others have followed. Currey regularly consults with other like-minded organizations seeking to draw the same positive attention to their river. Friends of the Tug Fork is an organization which patterned a lot of its plans and subsequent success the same as Coal River. The Little Kanawha River has a group also working on ways to revive its waterway.

Today, one of the recent additions to the Hatfield McCoy Trail is located beside the Coal River Group’s offices. Currey said they sell passes to ride the trial which has seen great success and added a whole new audience for the river. Private lodging, food service, and rental business have been springing up all over the Coal River Region. Currey said that was the plan all along.

“Our goal was to clean up the rivers and bring some economic development to the area, and we’ve done that,” he said.

The Tour De Coal Float starts at 9 a.m. Saturday. Registration online is $35.