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Indian Ridge Using on-Site Natural Resources to Fuel Project

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 03:00 CDT

WELCH - Coal, timber and the Coalfields Expressway helped create and continue to fuel growth of McDowell County's Indian Ridge Industrial Park.

Extracting on-site natural resources to help pay for the development was part of the project's design from the outset. According to the Coalfields Expressway Authority, the McDowell County Commission purchased 6,300 acres in 1998, financed by the sale of timber on the land.

"When we proposed the park, they laughed at us in Charleston," said Delegate Richard Browning, D-Wyoming, who is executive director of the Coalfields Expressway Authority.

"Every time we met with them, they raised the bar until finally they couldn't raise it any higher," he recalled. "And then Gov. Cecil Underwood directed the West Virginia Development Office to find the seed money to get the park developed."

The public-private project, which is along the McDowell-Wyoming line, allowed the removal of coal underlying the site to create the 300 acres for Phase I of the park, Browning said. Phase I began in 2000 and ended early 2003.

He said the coal originally was deemed unminable.

"The state Department of Transportation's Division of Highways was going to build bridges down the valley for the Coalfields Expressway," Browning said. "We told them if they would not build the bridges and just remove the overburden and fill the valley, the coal would be minable."

In what he called a win for everyone, the DOT removed millions of cubic yards of overburden. Then Beckley-based Bluestone Industries Inc. began mining the low-volatile metallurgical coal in 2001.

Browning, who called Indian Ridge the flagship of economic development in the county, said coal mining continues in Phase II work on the opposite side of state Route 121 from Phase I. Its goal is to create another 300 acres of flat land.

There's also mining around the perimeter of the park to extract coal before the Coalfields Expressway is completed in the area.

"Because the coal was going to be left around the perimeter of park, because of the Coalfields Expressway, Bluestone Industries sought a mining permit from the Department of Environmental Protection to do high wall mining," Browning said.

"They're currently doing that. They're doing that to accommodate a planned federal Bureau of Prisons facility," he said. After 9/11 occurred, the BOP wanted us to remove a couple of ridge tops that would be higher than the planned prison."

What's paying for additional removal is the coal being mined, as well as a grant from Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and a state grant that comes from the West Virginia Development Office, the Legislature and the Governor's Office, Browning said.

"The county owns the coal and Bluestone is paying the county a royalty," he said.

Browning noted the Bluestone has been doing this mining for approximately a year.

"I think they'll probably be finished in six months," he said.

Coal also has a potentially significant role in the construction of the Coalfields Expressway into and through Welch and on to Premier, where it will connect to U.S. 52.

"If we go the eight miles down to Welch, across the Tug River and then across the mountain to Premier, consultants have told us that we can cut the cost of construction of the main road, excluding the bridges, by 50 percent due to the minable coal that is on that path," Browning said.

An added benefit of such roadway construction would be the creation of flat land for commercial, residential and/or industrial development, he said.

With residential use, Browning referred to a Parsons Brinkerhoff engineering study that said people living in the flood-prone areas of southern West Virginia should consider moving to higher, safer ground.

Copyright State Journal Corporation Jun 24, 2005

Source: State Journal, The

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