By Adam Pack
The Greenbrier County Commission met Tuesday, Aug. 9 at 10 a.m. for their regularly scheduled meeting and heard a presentation from Region Four Planning and Development Project Assistant Betsey Morris.
Morris informed the commission that after the 2016 flood, “Many communities found that they had formerly industrial areas which were geographically placed such that they would fill up with water in flood events and then carry contaminants and old, buried industrial waste into streams and disperse them around the community.”
As a result of this pollution and the danger it poses to communities, the Region Four Planning and Development Office wrote a grant through the EPA to bring remediation efforts to the area. As of 2021 that grant fund is fully funded for Region 4 and county and municipality governments can submit potential former industrial areas to the fund to have those areas investigated for contamination. “It might be that there’s nothing there at all, and now we and the community can be assured and have peace of mind and can even begin the restoration process of some of the wonderful buildings around the county. But if there is something you’ll know that that property can be made safe.”
The Commission was very grateful to Morris for coming to Lewisburg to present this information to them, but no actions were officially undertaken as of now.
In other news, the commission signed two separate pieces of paperwork related to the Meadow River Rail Trail. E.L. Robinson is prepared to begin the final six mile stretch of the trail, which leads into the town of Rainelle, and requires the signing of a professional agreement. The commission passed that signatory action unanimously, as they also did to a change order from Lynch Construction on their portion of the trail.
Lynch need to make construction repairs due to a conflict between the design of the work and the realities on the ground when work was completed. Commissioner Tammy Shifflett-Tincher assured the public the issue is a small one and needs only a small revision to the original contract, and that the repairs required still did not exceed the budgeted funding through the TAP Grant for the project.
The Commission also signed the National Farmer’s Week proclamation, a proclamation recognizing the importance of farmer’s markets to “revitalizing rural communities through offering opportunities for new, small, and veteran farmers to market their produce.” The proclamation also recognized that farmer’s markets account for nine billion dollars annually in the U.S. Representatives were on hand to discuss the times and place of the five markets that operate in Greenbrier County: Renick which meets on Tuesday afternoons, Alderson on Tuesday afternoons, White Sulphur Springs on Thursday afternoons, Western Greenbrier (Rainelle) on Fridays, and the Courthouse Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. The commission encourages the public to visit and patronize local growers at their nearest Farmer’s Market, and signed the proclamation unanimously. Effective immediately, Aug. 7 through Aug. 13, 2022 is Greenbrier County Farmer’s Market Week in accordance with National Farmer’s Market Week.
The Greenbrier County Commission is scheduled to meet for their next regular meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 23 at 10 a.m. The public is encouraged to attend.