PARKERSBURG -West Virginia is listed among the largest recipients per capita in the nation of congressional pork appropriations, says the Citizens Against Government Waste, a private, non-partisan, nonprofit organization that claims to represent more than a million members.

Its latest 2009 Pig Book says Congress stuffed 10,160 projects into 12 appropriations bills totaling $19.6 billion. U.S. Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va., made $204 million in appropriation requests, while U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va, is asking for $79 million, the organization said.

Little of that money is headed to the Mid-Ohio Valley.

Of the organization's four-page list of proposed West Virginia projects, only two are earmarked for Wood or a neighboring county.

Mollohan has requested $86,000 for literacy and technology at West Virginia University at Parkersburg. He also requested $15,000 for the St. Marys Police Department.

Capito's proposed $2.4 million for acquisition and renovation of property adjacent to the WVU-P Jackson County Center as well as a million dollars for Alcan Rolled Products for developing advanced military armor for troops and another million dollars for water projects in Ripley, Ravenswood and Wirt County are not on the organization's pork lists.

Mollohan's million dollar request for the plan and design of an Army National Guard Maintenance and Repair facility in the vicinity of Parkersburg is also not on the list.

Mollohan dismissed the group's claims of pork as "mindless."

"I welcome genuine debate about federal appropriations, but this sort of mindless criticism is just plain silly," he said in an e-mail to The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

U.S. Sen Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., was singled out by the organization with an "Oinker" award for a $9.5 million appropriation for work on Corridor H. Earlier this week President Barack Obama's administration said that funding for the project should be eliminated because it duplicates other federal highway funding.

As in previous years, all of the items in the "Congressional Pig Book Summary" meet at least one of the organization's seven criteria: requested by only one chamber of Congress; not specifically authorized; not competitively awarded; not requested by the President; greatly exceeds the President's budget request or the previous year's funding; not the subject of congressional hearings; or serves only a local or special interest.

Mollohan takes issue with the organization's pork labeling.

"We're talking about federal funds that buy equipment a police department needs to keep us safe, for example, or a hospital needs to keep us healthy, or a town needs to preserve its supply of safe drinking water," Mollohan said. "Anyone wondering about the value of those projects would do better to ask local West Virginians than take the word of a Washington-based lobbying group more interested in cheap political stunts than shedding real light on the federal budget."

The organization also claims pork spending is on the rise from last year. While projects represent a 12.5 percent decrease from 2008, the $19.6 billion in requests is a 14 percent increase over the fiscal year 2008 of $17.2 billion.