Brownfields Grants Boost Economy in West Virginia
The EPA has awarded close to $600,000 in brownfields grants to help provide job training and environmental property assessments in Huntington and the southern region in West Virginia.
The EPA has awarded $592,300 in brownfields grants to help provide job training and environmental property assessments in Huntington and the southern region in West Virginia. $400,000 of the funds will go to the City of Huntington to assess the value of previously working industrial properties that have been negatively impacted by petroleum and/or other hazardous materials.
“Huntington’s neighborhoods were built around industrial plants, and it has been historically known as a manufacturing center. In fact, it still provides hundreds of manufacturing jobs, among the most of any city in West Virginia. Unfortunately, we also have hundreds of acres of vacant industrial property,” said Huntington’s Mayor Steve Williams. “This is a monumental first step in our efforts to restore these vacant properties to productive employment centers. Their restoration is critical to our future.”
The remaining funds will go to Coalfield Development Corporation as an Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training grant, which will aid in training 80 residents for entry level jobs for cleaning up abandoned and contaminated properties in southern West Virginia.
For the past ten years, the EPA has leveraged over $22 billion for the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields across the U.S.