MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WVDN) — Just as Zillow helps home buyers find houses for sale, commercial real estate developers will soon be able to find the ideal property in West Virginia’s southern coalfields using a similar land search system developed at West Virginia University.
Researchers have designed the platform to encourage development opportunities, like clean energy and recreation, on former mine lands.
To repurpose these lands and create new jobs, WVU will collaborate with Coalfield Development Corporation and The Nature Conservancy. The system is part of a comprehensive project called “Appalachian Climate Technology Now,” which received funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration as part of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge Grant.
WVU is leading the Former Mine Lands to Sustainable Lands component of the project.
“There’s never been such a concerted effort to take these properties and find some beneficial use for them, find jobs for the folks down there,” said Brady Gutta, director of the Center for Sustainable Mine Lands at the WVU Institute for Sustainability and Energy Research or WISER. “This project could be a fundamental transformation for work in southern West Virginia.”
Almost 4,500 former mine lands exist in West Virginia’s 21 southern coalfield counties. To facilitate investors’ and developers’ searches, properties are organized in an interactive database similar to Zillow, Airbnb and VRBO. The web-based mapping tool analyzes sites based on their locational and other developable attributes. Users, including local and state governments, economic development authorities and private developers, can search for spatial criteria specific to certain types of development, including renewable energy options.
“You can select criteria that fit your developmental goals and objectives,” said Mike Strager, a spatial scientist and professor of resource economics at the WVU Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “With Zillow, a user might need a home that’s three bedrooms, within five miles of school and work, and you can create these filters to help you narrow down your options. So, we took that as our inspiration and applied it to these former mine lands in the southern coalfield counties in West Virginia.”
A solar farm, for example, would require a large amount of non-forested, relatively flat, south-facing acreage with proximity to an electrical substation, while a viable recreational site would have varied topography for the construction of mountain biking trails or a location in municipalities with relaxed ordinances for off-road vehicles. Carbon capture biomass crops would need a site with grasslands or low vegetation. Production of geothermal energy would perform better on sites with previous underground mine pools and near an institutional-size energy user such as a hospital or school.
“That way, you’re not just indiscriminately developing individual sites but taking into consideration county level or regional needs that complement each other or provide diversification of industries,” Strager said.
During the project’s second year, the WVU team aims to refine the search tool to provide users with a timeframe for sustainable development. At present, 16 sites have been identified.
The researchers intend for the tool to be used by private developers and industry, the West Virginia Economic Development Authority, regional economic development groups, and county organizations and stakeholder groups.
The endeavor has brought together both internal and external collaborators. In addition to outside consultants and nonprofits like Coalfield Development, multiple WVU departments are involved, including WISER, the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative, Natural Resource Analysis Center, the Office of Student and Faculty Innovation, Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic, Mountain Hydrology Lab, Start Up WV, John Chambers College of Business and Economics and the BRIDGE Initiative.
Gutta said each collaborative group will have a role in the assessment of potential properties. Once the tool has selected parcels that can be redeveloped based on various criteria, WISER identifies companies that could potentially use them.
“Then we have the folks at the law clinic do a title search,” Gutta said. “Next, an outside consultant called Qualified Ventures identifies and develops capital stacking opportunities, whether they be grants or private capital, so we get the funding mechanism in place.”
Coalfield Development, the lead for the ACT Now Coalition, will spearhead workforce development, while BRIDGE Initiative identifies any regulatory barriers.
“We’ve got a five task project,” Gutta said. “It’s a cradle-to-grave process that we use to repurpose these sites. We’ve got thousands of acres throughout West Virginia, and this project breaks down the steps necessary to take these properties that were once active mine sites and put them to some kind of beneficial reuse.”
He said the search system should be applicable to former extraction sites all over West Virginia and, eventually, across the U.S., including places where other substances have been mined.
Reaching out to the communities near former mine lands has been an essential component of the work. Strager is familiar with the profound effect the loss of mining jobs can have on a community.
“Growing up in Pittsburgh, I had family and friends who worked in the steel mills in the late 70s and early 80s,” he said. “It was a tough time — steel mills were closing and there was overseas competition. A lot of family and friends lost their jobs, and I recognize what that did to my community. People lost their identities. Now, we’re helping rural areas. And that’s what our state is all about.”
The researchers said they believe the shift to sustainable energy will be a gradual one rather than a “light switch moment,” but that West Virginia’s rugged terrain offers a unique opportunity.
“Our topography is one of our greatest assets, but it’s also one of our greatest challenges,” said Danny Twilley, assistant vice president of economic, community and asset development for the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative.
“We don’t have a ton of developable land, because we don’t have a lot of flat land. So now we have a way to convert those properties into more productive uses, and that doesn’t just mean industry and enterprise. It means conservation. It means recreation. It means agriculture. And if we have excelled in energy extraction and production, we could be the national leaders in environmental restoration, too.”
