In Fall 2019, Belomar Regional Council was awarded a $200,000 Community-wide Brownfield Assessment Grant from the EPA.
What is a Brownfield you might ask?
According to the EPA website, a brownfield is property or site where “the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” So basically, a brownfield is a site that contains some kind of contamination.
Due to the intensive industrial history of the Ohio Valley area, Belomar’s four-county region (Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel and Belmont) has quite a few brownfield sites. Often these sites are located near the center of our region’s cities and towns, making redevelopment of our city centers more challenging. The first step to getting these properties back into productive use is to assess the land and/or structures on them for potential contaminants. Belomar hired Environmental Standards, Inc. as their environmental consultant to do the assessment work for this grant.
In 2017, the Belomar Brownfield Task Force was created to begin the process of identifying brownfield properties throughout the Ohio Valley by creating an inventory of potential sites. The Task Force meets bi-monthly to decide how EPA grant funds should be spent, bringing brownfield properties one step closer to redevelopment. You can learn more about the Task Force, here.
Is there a brownfield property in your community that you would like added to the Task Force’s inventory? If so, please send an email, here.
Check out the properties/sites below that have benefited from the EPA Brownfield Assessment Grant:
Columbia Gas Building
Penn Wheeling Closure
Moundsville City Building Expansion