Virginia has been awarded a report quantity of federal {dollars} to put the groundwork for the cleanup of contaminated or doubtlessly contaminated websites referred to as brownfields within the cities of Emporia and Newport Information and the cities of Appalachia and Blackstone. 

This month, the U.S. Environmental Safety Company awarded the Virginia Division of Environmental High quality $2 million in brownfields grants, probably the most of its type ever obtained by DEQ, with an extra $3.5 million going to regional and native governments and authorities.  

The $5.5 million in funding is the most recent signal of elevated funding in Virginia’s brownfields cleanup efforts, which can additionally see extra infusions of money because the federal Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act prepares to funnel $1.5 billion towards such efforts over the subsequent 5 years. 

Most lately, federal brownfields funding amounted to $200 million yearly by means of 2023, mentioned Chelsea Barnes, legislative director of environmental and financial growth group Appalachian Voices. With the $1.5 billion earmark, “we will certainly see a rise within the funding ranges Virginia receives,” she mentioned. 

These monies can be along with roughly $22 million Virginia is slated to obtain for the rehabilitation of deserted mine lands. Altogether, mentioned Virginia Division of Vitality Financial Growth Supervisor Daniel Kestner, the state expects to “eradicate a report variety of potential security hazards and enhance environmental advantages.”  

Brownfields are outlined as properties whose “growth, redevelopment, or reuse … could also be difficult by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.” They will embody every part from former industrial websites to railyards to dry cleaners to fuel stations. 

Each the federal authorities and Virginia function their very own applications to revive and redevelop such websites.

Virginia’s Division of Environmental High quality doesn’t have a whole stock of the state’s brownfields, however DEQ Brownfields Program Coordinator Vince Maiden mentioned Virginia possible has 1000’s of such websites. 

“As a result of the definition underneath the statutes in Virginia and on the federal degree is so broad … any web site that has contamination or the potential for contamination will be thought-about a brownfield,” mentioned DEQ Brownfields and Voluntary Remediation Program Supervisor Meade Anderson. “It’s arduous to place a deal with on numbers like that.”  

DEQ’s latest $2 million award from EPA, which is earmarked for brownfields evaluation and planning, is a giant enhance from the $300,000 Virginia obtained from the federal company for that goal in each 2018 and 2021. 

Earlier EPA funds went towards the promotion of brownfields as candidates for renewable vitality initiatives in traditionally economically deprived communities in Brunswick, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties, in addition to the identification of brownfields throughout the Mount Rogers Planning District that could possibly be repurposed. 

This 12 months officers took a extra statewide method to making use of for federal {dollars}, focusing in town of Appalachia and three different communities that Maiden mentioned “have been underserved with brownfields funding.” 

Whereas the $2 million won’t go instantly towards cleanup, it is going to be used to determine and assess brownfields websites in Appalachia, Emporia, Newport Information and Blackstone that could possibly be rehabilitated, in addition to different potential websites across the state. Grant funds will also be paired with present financial growth grants, famous Kestner. 

“When you’ve acquired form of a deal with on what the environmental situations are on the location, they will transfer on to the subsequent step, which is redevelopment planning,” mentioned Maiden. “We’re attempting to determine what the neighborhood needs to see occur on the web site.” 

The potential for inserting renewables on such websites — an more and more well-liked concept in Virginia as tensions rise over using land for large-scale photo voltaic installations supposed to assist the state decarbonize its energy sector by midcentury — may even be thought-about. 

“There are some websites that lend themselves to being most likely simpler to reuse as renewables – a few of the minelands, outdated landfills, some websites which will have extreme prices” or these with present concrete pads or foundations, mentioned Anderson. The query is, he added, “is there reuse, and what will be economically pushed?” 

Whereas curiosity in brownfields redevelopment has risen and fallen over time, Maiden mentioned the latest uptick has been linked to the thought of repurposing brownfields for renewable initiatives. A provision within the 2020 Virginia Clear Financial system Act that required the state’s two largest electrical utilities to develop no less than 200 megawatts of photo voltaic on beforehand developed mission websites together with brownfields triggered “a number of calls and emails which might be nonetheless coming in,” he mentioned.