WVaSS was founded by Roger Baroody who was motivated to continue the survey begun by William E. Davies (1917–1990) in his Caverns of West Virginia (1949, 1950, 1965).
Large quantities of new cave and karst data were becoming available and so the need for a dedicated survey program seemed evident.
In 1978, WVaSS became a Study Group of the National Speleological Society (NSS) and in 1987 was granted 501c3 tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
For reasons of cave conservation and safety, it is the policy of WVaSS to sell bulletins only to NSS members and individuals and agencies doing karst research.
In aggregate, the 11 survey bulletins have provided descriptions of over 2175 caves in 14 West Virginia counties.