West Virginia is home to hundreds of brownfield sites – including coal mines, railyards, and even gas stations.
On Tuesday, the West Virginia Brownfields Conference brought several groups together to discuss how brownfields can be redeveloped.
Morgantown Mayor Bill Byrne welcomed the attendees.
“It provides an opportunity for people to discuss ways they can partner together to solve some of these problems, and make better use of these properties,” he said.
The Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center works under the West Virginia Water Research Institute. Paul Ziemkiewicz is the director of the institute.
He says the center faces a very difficult challenge when revitalizing brownfields.
“The financing part of it,” he said.
“No matter how nicely you dress up a piece of property, if no one comes in and invests the money, and then moves that into a paying commercial enterprise, then we really haven’t succeeded.”
The Environmental Protection Agency co-hosted the event.
EPA project manager Joe Nowak says it’s hard to convince people that brownfield properties can be made safe.
“They’re a problem that confronts all of us, but also one of the important aspects is that one third of the brownfield properties that are assessed are found to be clean.”
More than 20 exhibitors who work with brownfields displayed information about their organizations.
Tom Stockdale is with the Safety and Health Extension at West Virginia University.
They provide training to people who work at abandoned sites.
“We hope to be involved in the next brownfields efforts,” he said.
“We want to train people in worker protection,” he said, “asbestos removal, lead, mold, all the issues that you’d find in older structures.”
Also at the conference, the Benedum Foundation presented five organizations with $12,000 grants to assist them in revitalizing brownfields.
The conference is sponsored by Triad Engineering, Jackson Kelly law firm, Thrasher Engineering and H.C. Nutting, a Terracon Company.