Reclaim, Restore, Revitalize West Virginia! That’s the theme for the 11th annual West Virginia Brownfields Conference. The event, hosted by the West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Centers, will take place Sept. 7-8 at the Marriott Town Center in Charleston.

Brownfields include all property, which is hindered from redevelopment or reuse due to the presence or perceived presence of a hazardous substance, or contaminant. 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 conference features exceptional educational programs covering all aspects of brownfields redevelopment including: deal structuring and financing, abandoned and dilapidated buildings, grant writing, media engagement, remediation training for licensed remediation specialists, community action on brownfields, and much more. New this year, the event will include pre-conference mobile workshops showcasing brownfields projects in the Kanawha Valley.

“We are very excited for this year’s conference, and we are particularly excited about the pre-conference workshops,” said Patrick Kirby, director of the Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at West Virginia University. “The opportunity to showcase the amazing work being done by communities in southern West Virginia is something we couldn’t pass up. The revitalization of brownfield properties is instrumental in our state’s future economic development.”

The Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center is a program of the West Virginia Water Research Institute at the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at West Virginia University and serves the northern 33 counties in West Virginia. The West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at Marshall University, located in Huntington, West Virginia is housed within the Center for Environmental, Geotechnical, and Applied Sciences and serves the southern 22 counties in West Virginia.

This premier redevelopment event attracts over 200 stakeholders including regional EPA officials, economic development professionals, real estate developers, lawyers, state and local officials, environmental professionals, entrepreneurs, planners, bankers, investors, and community redevelopment professionals.

More details including registration and exhibitor information coming soon. Visit www.wvbrownfields.org for the latest information on the 2016 West Virginia Brownfields Conference.

-WVU-

CONTACT: Andrew Stacy, West Virginia Water Research Institute
304.293.7085, AStacy@mail.wvu.edu

Follow @WVUToday on Twitter.