>>DEREK HANCOCK: The wonderful thing about our program
is we get to turn some things that are
considered either urban blight
or maybe a scar on the community into an
opportunity.
Sometimes we never know what that
outcome is going to be
and this was an opportunity where we can
actually use those EPA funds
to assist in the cleanup of this site to
prepare it for that next opportunity.
That's really what our group is about. We
really love redevelopment
and providing opportunities to the
communities that we serve.
>>NARRATION: The brownfield section of the West
Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection's Office of Environmental
Remediation
works with communities to address
environmental issues
involving abandoned or underutilized
properties and allow them to be
redeveloped and returned to productive
use.
Here are five stories of five brownfield
projects,
and five communities transformed. If
there can be such a thing as a typical
brownfield property,
the Fenton Art Glass plant in
Williamstown would be a good example.
Built in 1906, the site covered two acres
and employed 725
employees at its peak. Fenton is known
for its popular Carnival Glass.
>>DEREK HANCOCK: Fenton produced handmade colored glass
and the company was
pretty renowned for the innovative glass
colors as well as the hand painted
decorations
and the pressed on and glass blown
glassware.
The company unfortunately saw a decline
in sales beginning in 2000,
and in 2011 the plant closed.
In 2016, the West Virginia DEP
administered an asbestos, lead-based
paint, and PCB
inspection through an environmental
contractor.
The West Virginia DEP utilized the U.S.
EPA
Brownfield Assessment Grant funding for
this inspection.
The asbestos containing materials -
they're also known as ACMs -
were found during the inspection. Some of
these items included
cement boards, flooring tiles,
sealants, glues, mastics - even roofing
paint.
>>NARRATION: The asbestos containing materials were
removed before the building was sold to
the Wood County school system
and demolished. Today, it's home to the
new Williamstown-Waverly Elementary
School, which is set to open this fall.
The new school's cafeteria has a glass
mural by a local artist
that features pieces of Fenton Art Glass.
Sometimes redevelopment means turning
brownfields into green spaces.
That's what happened with projects in
Morgan and Kanawha counties.
>>ERIN BRITTAIN: The Morgan County Recreational Complex
is in Berkeley Springs
and it's about 10 acres in size.
back in the early 1900s, it was used
as an orchard -
agricultural land, as most of the eastern
panhandle was,
and associated pesticides, herbicides,
things like that,
back in the day. Then, by the 1960s,
it was utilized as an auto repair -
salvage - crushing facility
for several years. By the 70s, it
turned into a wood furniture
manufacturing facility.
In the early 1990s, there was a fire
and the building burned to the ground. So,
all that was left was
concrete structures and it remained
vacant for many years.
>>NARRATION: In 2006, the Morgan County Commission
purchased the site and used it as a
soccer field
and adjacent parking lot for the next two years.
>>ERIN BRITTAIN: And then it was discovered
that there was metal debris, and glass debris,
from the former manufacturing at the
facility,
and because it was unsafe, obviously, for
soccer,
they closed it after a couple years
to determine upon further
investigation really what to do with the
facility.
>>NARRATION: Over the next few years, the Commission
approached the DEP's Office of
Environmental Remediation
to help with site assessment. When test
results came back
positive for pesticides in the soil and
groundwater from the orchard
and petroleum and metal contamination
from the auto salvage business,
the property was enrolled in the DEP's
Voluntary Remediation Program
and was granted a Certificate of
Completion in 2017.
>>ERIN BRITTAIN: The Voluntary Remediation Program is
very important. We have sites all across
the state
that have been underutilized,
been vacant for years, for
decades sometimes,
and it really just takes that
little bit
of of assessment for Phase One or Phase
Two
that's why our own Office of
Environmental Remediation
applies and receives these EPA Federal
grants for brownfield assessment,
and that's why we like to offer
assistance for these sites
and really, it just takes that little bit
of Phase One site assessment to get
a site started and getting it back into
being redeveloped.
>>NARRATION: And today, the site is being used as a
soccer complex,
just as the County Commission originally
intended.
At the corner of Dixie and Nancy streets
in Charleston,
a new neighborhood park adds much needed
green space to the city's East End.
>>DAVID LONG: In 2005, the City of Charleston actually
received a brownfield assessment grant
from the EPA
and that was to begin to do an inventory
of sites in Charleston that they could
look at for redevelopment
and East End Park was actually one of
the very first sites that they looked at.
>>NARRATION: At the time, the site consisted of a
vacant lot and several residences -
some occupied, some abandoned. 0:05:38.080,0:05:41.919 >>DAVID LONG: They did find, at one time, that there was a
commercial structure in the northwest
corner of the property,
but they were never really sure what
that
particular structure was used
for.
There was also a railroad spur
that led to the adjacent Kanawha
Manufacturing property.
They also found a good bit of
debris on the property, what
might have been
construction or demolition debris. They
also found out that a lot of that
material
was also in the subsurface, indicating
that fill material had been brought in.
>>NARRATION: The city purchased the
five houses and,
after addressing asbestos and other
contaminants, had them demolished.
It's part of a larger redevelopment plan
for the neighborhood.
Today the site features a paved walking
path, playground equipment,
and a covered seating area for special events.
>>JIM EDWARDS: We eliminated a negative and, of
course, we've created a positive --
a place where children and others in the
neighborhood can come to
that helps make it a more complete
neighborhood -- a place where people
would be more willing to purchase and
renovate a home and live here long term.
It just provides an alternative place
for people that live in these
historic homes that have very small
yards that
provides an amenity that makes the
neighborhood more livable.
>>NARRATION: Sometimes, instead of demolition, the
projects involve preservation
like the former Urling's building in
downtown Wayne, West Virginia.
The two-story building was built in the
1920s by the Wayne County Oil and Gas
Company
and used for office and storage space.
It was later used as an auto company,
a general store, and several other retail
establishments.
It was last used by Catholic Charities
as a food pantry.
It's currently being developed by the
Housing Authority of Wayne County
which required a Phase One assessment.
>>MICHAEL SUTPHIN: And what a Phase One
consists of is it's not
an investigation where they actually do
any physical investigation on the site
like drilling,
taking soil samples, or putting
in
monitoring wells. It's mostly a
records and interview search. It really
consists of
searching the titles and deeds in the
courthouse to see
anybody that could have been associated
with the property and any other information.
Sometimes it tells
functions of the property and business
functions.
>>NARRATION: The housing authority plans for retail
and office space on the first floor and
affordable housing options on the second.
A much larger and more involved project
was the former Corbin building
in Huntington's Westmoreland
neighborhood. Built around 1910,
the A.F. Thompson Manufacturing Company
made stoves.
By the 1960s, the property was leased by
Corbin Manufacturing,
a maker of men's suits. Corbin ceased
operation in 2003
and the property sat empty and was
vandalized and broken into repeatedly.
>>JOHN MEEKS: We used brownfield grant funds that we
had
obtained from U.S. EPA and we performed
environmental assessments at the site
and that allowed the Wayne County
Economic Development Authority, who was
the original
owner of the site in its redevelopment
phase,
to acquire ownership of the property
without acquiring the environmental
liability.
>>NARRATION: And from there, Coalfield Development
Corporation acquired the property.
>>JACOB HANNAH: Coalfield Development is a family of
social enterprises here in West Virginia
and part of our projects like this one
here is to focus on how to
create opportunities out of former
liabilities --
whether that's an old abandoned building
or a tract of land that wasn't usable
before, we try and figure out ways to
to catalyze those resources into new
opportunities for folks.
>>NARRATION: The facility, renamed West Edge,
is home to a growing and diverse
collection of entrepreneurs.
>>JACOB HANNAH: Right now, we are in the Sustain U
enterprise
at our West Edge building. It mainly
focuses on
design, printing, and distribution of our
100 percent
recycled t-shirts that are made from
shredded and pelletized textiles that
come from
former plastic materials. Next door to us,
we have a wood shop in the facility as
well that
makes high-end furniture and custom
materials out of reclaimed, repurposed
wood.
And then we have a large event space
where we, before COVID, would hold a lot
of
great public events and concert series.
And then lastly, we have
Solar Holler, which is the largest solar
installer in the region
and Refresh Appalachia, which focuses on
distributing agriculture goods in the area.
>>JOHN MEEKS: The real advantage is that
if you do NOT do environmental
assessment prior to taking ownership of
the property,
according to Superfund law, you can be
held liable, as well.
By performing the environmental
assessment, they
attain what's known as innocent
landowner
liability limitations. So, then
we basically document that any
contamination was here prior to
the innocent landowner taking
occupation of the property.
>>JACOB HANNAH: A lot of folks had looked at this site
before for potential development or
repurposing
and it was just sort of this nebulous
question mark
as to, you know, what what does it entail?
What's the liability there? And so
utilizing those assessments helped us to
really understand - well,
wow, there is a swimming pool out
there that we didn't know about and
now we can focus on other areas to
develop until we can get that more
finalized as a project. So it really
helped us to have a road map.
>>JOHN MEEKS: That's the basis really of brownfields
is to not
give up on the great assets that we
already have. So, we can reuse
beautiful buildings that were well
constructed as opposed to tearing them
down
and then having to build a new building.
>>NARRATION: The Office of Environmental Remediation
will be receiving more U.S. EPA
Brownfield Assessment Grant funds
beginning in October this year to
conduct more Phase 1 and Phase 2
assessments
and continue fulfilling our piece of the
redevelopment opportunities
for West Virginia communities.