"MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Republican Senate candidate John Raese filled in wetlands and damaged more than 2 miles of streams when he rerouted them to create waterfalls on a private, 18-hole West Virginia golf course that federal regulators say he built without the required permits."

"The years-long construction of Pikewood National Golf Club near Morgantown is "probably the biggest violation we've ever seen in this district," Sheila Tunney, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh, told The Associated Press.

More than two years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered Raese, the club's president, to develop a plan to mitigate the damage. Tunney says work on that plan is ongoing."

Vicki Smith reports for the Associated Press October 8, 2012. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Covering The Role of Coal In Virginia" (Columbia Journalism Review) [3]