Trending
WEIRTON -- Efforts to prepare various properties, including former industrial sites, in Hancock and Brooke counties will continue following the announcement this week of a new grant for the Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle.
Adam Ortiz, Mid-Atlantic regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, while in the area Monday for the ceremonial ribbon cutting of Pure Watercraft's facility in Beech Bottom, announced the BDC is the recipient of a $500,000 brownfields assessment grant.
"Great things happen when people work together," Ortiz said
According to information provided by the EPA, the agency has provided $5.53 million in brownfield assessment and cleanup assistance for Brooke and Hancock counties since 2003, including $2,658,500 directly to the BDC.
These funds have been used in Phase 1 and Phase 2 assessments, end-use planning, property acquisitions, site concept plans and actual cleanup on numerous properties in the region.
"When US EPA funds are available, we utilize those funds," explained BDC Executive Director Marvin Six.
Over the years, community-wide assessment grants have been awarded for use to evaluate properties in Hancock, Brooke and Jefferson counties as part of a coalition agreement between the BDC, the Jefferson County Port Authority, and the Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission. The City of Weirton also has received its own grants, including $69,217 in 2008 to assist with the cleanup of the former Cove School property, and $800,000 in 2018 as part of operating a revolving loan fund to assist with development projects.
The BDC has used its various grants on the Frontier Crossing property in Weirton, as well as the Beech Bottom Industrial Park, the Brooke Glass property in Wellsburg, the former Taylor, Smith and Taylor pottery site in Chester, the Lodge at Williams Golf and Country Club, the former Jimmy Carey Stadium and various community-wide assessments.
"Everything starts with US EPA dollars," noted BDC Assistant Executive Director Jacob Keeney. "They're the first nickel in on everything we do."
Keeney noted the BDC's plans for this latest grant are focused solely on Frontier Crossing.
"The grant was written specifically to address the remaining property at Frontier," he said.
Ortiz offered praise to the BDC, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and others, for their consistent efforts to rehabilitate such properties, and clean them of the potential contamination which has kept them from being used for so many years.
"These places have been abandoned because they're hard," Ortiz said. "It's been an honor to work on the tough stuff with people."
Ortiz explained he has seen for himself the successes of the brownfield grants awarded in West Virginia, having visited the state more than a dozen times in the last 16 months.
Six added, without such funds, there are a lot of properties which would remain unusable.
(Howell can be contacted at chowell@weirtondailytimes.com, and via Twitter @CHowellWDT)