The West Virginia Brownfields Assistance centers will be hosting the eighth annual West Virginia Brownfields Conference Sept. 12 and 13 at the Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown. The conference combines exceptional educational programs with outstanding networking opportunities between communities, development professionals and service providers.

The conference will feature numerous topics related to brownfield redevelopment including building demolition and environmental threats, sustainability and economic development, site control issues, land banks, community planning and engagement, financing projects, and legal issues.

“Each year, we cover the latest topics in brownfields redevelopment,” said Patrick Kirby, director of the Northern Brownfields Assistance Center. “The Conference provides a great forum for brownfields stakeholders from across the state to network and learn from one another.”

Brownfields include all real property, including residential, commercial, and industrial properties in which the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

Both the Northern Brownfields Assistance Center, located at West Virginia University, and the Brownfields Assistance Center at Marshall University were created to empower communities to plan and implement brownfields redevelopment projects.

For more information or to register for the 2013 West Virginia Brownfields Conference, visit: http://www.wvbrownfields.org/.

The West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Centers were created in 2005 by the West Virginia Legislature to empower communities to plan and implement redevelopment projects.

The Northern Brownfields Assistance Center is a program of the West Virginia Water Research Institute at the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at WVU and serves the northern 33 counties in West Virginia.

The West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at Marshal University, located in Huntington, is housed within the Center for Environmental, Geotechnical, and Applied Sciences (CEGAS) and serves the southern 22 counties in West Virginia.

-WVU-

gw/4/12/13

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CONTACT: Glenn Waldron, WV Water Research Institute
304.293.7085; Glenn.Waldron@mail.wvu.edu