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The FOCUS WV Brownfields program helps communities create a redevelopment vision for brownfield properties of strategic community interest. Examples of activities eligible for funding include conducting environmental site assessments, developing project funding strategies, engaging project stakeholders, and procuring feasibility and design services.

Brownfields are abandoned or underutilized properties that have not been redeveloped due to real or perceived environmental barriers. Examples of brownfields include former gas stations, glass factories, machine shops, manufacturing and processing facilities, dry cleaners, mine scarred lands, abandoned schools and former railroad-related properties.

A collaborative art exhibit at West Virginia University focuses on one of the state’s most abundant resources -- water. It also celebrates the many women who protect it. 

Featuring brightly colored panels covering wide swaths of the downtown campus library’s walls, “WATER: Exploring the Significance, Power and Play of Life’s Critical Resource” explores the state’s rivers and wetland ecosystems, celebrates the art and recreation opportunities afforded by water, and explores challenges and solutions facing the state’s water resources. 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – February has been exceptionally wet, dumping more than one-and-three-quarters-inches greater-than-average rainfall during what is normally the driest month of the year. Unusually wet weather is a recipe for mine drainage overflows that can pollute nearby streams, warned Dr. Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia University. Expect abandoned mines’ treatment systems to clog and fail or the mines themselves to blow out during the spring, he said.

Recent national news has drawn attention to the “50M gallons of polluted water [that] pours daily from 42 mine sites” in western states.

RSVP to Angela Shock at 304.293.6520 or angela.shock@mai.wvu.edu by April 3.

Irwin began his WVU career as a professor in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ Mathematics Department. More recently, he served as director of the TransTech Energy Research and Business Development Program, an initiative he founded that advocates for the development of transitional energy technologies. The program has helped over 150 energy and advanced manufacturing researchers, innovators, and business startups throughout the Mid-Atlantic region engage with financial investors and move towards commercializing their products and ideas.

Yet for centuries, miners have braved dangers for the promise of better lives for their families. And since 1946 they have been supported by a compact between miners, owners and the federal government, that made health care and pensions an integral part of the profession in this country.

However, structural changes in the U.S. economy have strained, if not unraveled, this compact. And mine owners have consistently sought to shed their obligations towards miners and their families. Most recently, a judge allowed the bankrupt Westmoreland Coal Company to abandon its promise of paying for the health care of retired union workers as well as its union contracts. The company announced March 4, 2019 that a bankruptcy court has approved the sale of many of its assets to creditors and that business will “continue operating in the normal course.”

Update (March 9, 2019): William & Mary emerged as the champion of our 9th Annual Energy & Sustainability Moot Court Competition, defeating Yale in the finals in arguments before six federal judges. The other semifinalists were LSU and George Washington

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Law students from across the country are gathering in Morgantown March 7-9 for the ninth annual  National Energy and Sustainability Moot Court Competition, hosted by WVU Law.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia University will take a different approach to studying ways to solve the universal issue of climate change by offering "People vs. the Planet: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Climate" this fall. Taught by Andrea Soccorsi, the course will explore the basic assumptions about climate change and investigate its human cost through the lens of multiple disciplines in an attempt to synthesize solutions from diverse perspectives.