A West Virginia University effort that helps Northern West Virginia communities convert abandoned or underutilized properties into usable assets is encouraging local groups to apply for grant money to boost the group’s efforts.

The Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at WVU has a record of success in helping local entities convert old sites – known as brownfields – into usable parcels for new uses. The center’s Foundations for Overcoming Challenges and Utilizing Strengths West Virginia Program – or FOCUS WV – is making a series of $5,000 grants available to interested towns and communities in West Virginia facing brownfields challenges.

“Brownfields are abandoned or underutilized properties that have not been redeveloped because of real or perceived environmental barriers,” said Patrick Kirby, director of the center. “Examples of brownfields include former gas stations, glass factories, machine shops, manufacturing and processing facilities, dry cleaners and mine scarred lands.”

The FOCUS WV Brownfields Program helps communities create a redevelopment vision for brownfield properties of strategic interest, Kirby said. Activities eligible for funding include conducting environmental site assessments, holding community meetings, and identifying and involving project stakeholders. The program is targeting former industrial sites, however, all types of brownfield projects are encouraged to apply.

Kirby said that the FOCUS WV Program “offers communities a starting point to create a plan of action to turn community eyesores into assets.”

The program provides direct financial assistance to communities in the form of small grants and also helps eligible communities apply for additional support from other sources such as federal redevelopment funds.

Grantees can use the program’s resources to better position themselves to compete for additional technical and programmatic assistance and to help bring additional resources and expertise to their local projects.

Eligible applicants interested in applying for the 2012 FOCUS WV Program by Oct. 28 are encouraged to participate in one of two web-based conference call training sessions set for Aug. 31 or Sept. 30 by sending an RSVP to: focuswv@mail.wvu.edu, or by calling 304-293-6990. Application and additional information can be found online at www.wvbrownfields.org.

The FOCUS WV Program was created in 2009 through support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to support the many small communities in rural West Virginia which lack the staff or technical expertise to undertake brownfields redevelopment projects on their own. To date, the program has funded 32 communities for a total of $268,000 and leveraged an additional $4.1 million in funding and support for the community projects.

The Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center, a program of the Water Research Institute housed at WVU, serves the State’s northern 33 counties, while the Brownfields Assistance Center at Marshall University, housed within the Center for Environmental, Geotechnical, and Applied Sciences, serves the Southern 22 counties.

Last October, The Brownfields Assistance Centers at WVU and Marshall were recipients of a West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Partnership Award that recognizes the effectiveness of the collaborative approach the Centers use to help communities identify, clean up and redevelop brownfields sites throughout the state as well as their working relationships with state and federal agencies.

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CONTACTS: Patrick Kirby, Director, Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center, 304-293-6984, Patrick.Kirby@mail.wvu.edu

Luke Elser, Project Manager, Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center,
304-293-6990, Luke.Elser@mail.wvu.edu

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