SWVA projects recommended for $10M in federal grants

Four Southwest Virginia economic development projects have been recommended to receive a cumulative $10 million in federal Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization (AMLER) grants, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, announced Monday.

The projects are on sites where coal was mined prior to 1977, the year the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act was passed. This federal law, among other things, requires the land to be adequately reclaimed when mining ends.

Funding for the AMLER program comes through the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which approves the grants, and the Virginia Department of Energy administers funding for projects in the state. 

“The AMLER program supports high impact projects that align with federal, state and local priorities to improve communities and foster economic development,” state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, stated in a release. “This round of funding will provide necessary investments to bolster infrastructure and enhance recreational and commercial opportunities to ensure SWVA continues to be successful.” 

Virginia’s recommended projects are:

• Project Intersection, Wise County, $4.75 million
• Richlands Electric Diversification Project, Tazewell County, $2 million
• Cumberland Outdoor Recreation, Dickenson and Buchanan counties, $2.75 million
• Project Wildcat, Wise County, $500,000

The funding for Project Intersection will go to build a second entryway into the industrial park, which has four remaining pads totaling about 70 acres available for development, according to Duane Miller, executive director for the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission.

The industrial park is owned by the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, or LPRIFA, which was created through legislation in 2019, and includes representatives from the counties of Dickenson, Lee, Scott and Wise and the City of Norton. Project Intersection is certified as a Tier 5 site, the highest level in the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s Virginia Business Ready Sites Program tier system.

AMLER has previously provided more than $12 million to develop the industrial park, according to Tarah Kesterson, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Energy. 

EarthLink, the Atlanta-based internet service provider owned by Trive Capital, celebrated the opening of a 30,000-square-foot facility at Project Intersection earlier this month.

“It’s going to be a premiere site,” Will Payne, managing partner of Coalfield Strategies, an economic development consulting firm focused on Southwest Virginia, said of Project Intersection. 

Officials in the town of Richlands, which has provided electricity to businesses and citizens since 1922, requested AMLER funding after facing rate increases, according to a Aug. 15 news release from the Virginia Department of Energy. The money will go toward the construction of a natural gas-fired turbine and generator, a micro power plant capable of generating 5 megawatts of electricity — enough to serve the town’s 2,500 utility customers. 

The Cumberland Outdoor Recreation project is the purchase by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources of “an easement of 12,900 acres on Nature Conservancy property in Buchanan and Dickenson counties,” according to the Virginia Department of Energy. The land will be used for recreation, including a new ATV trail and road improvements.

The funding for Project Wildcat will pay for a retaining wall around an abandoned mine site in Pound, according to Kesterson.

Virginia began receiving federal grant dollars for the AMLER program in 2017 and has recommended nearly 50 projects since then, including five projects announced in January. Six states and three tribes receive the federal funding. 

Last week, the Appalachian Community Capital community development financial institution announced it had received a $500 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to start the Green Bank for Rural America, which plans to finance $1.6 billion in energy projects in the Appalachian region and other rural areas across the country.