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The project’s first phase began last May and ended this month with contributing journalists, nonprofit leads and community members coming together at West Virginia University’s Media Innovation Center to celebrate their work so far, which includes more than 20 multimedia pieces that cover the Ohio River’s environment, economy and culture.

The panel shared their own experiences working and living along the Ohio – the progress they’ve seen in healthy water levels and wildlife growth, how to handle new threats like the impacts of climate change, and redirecting the narrative from warning against the river’s dangers to reinvigorating the region’s tourism.

An assessment to determine any environmental deterrents that might impact the progress of completion of the site of the old Sutton Bank Building will be conducted with the help of a grant from the West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at WVU. (WVU Photo)

MORGANTOWN, WV - The rusty orange streambed is a giveaway.

Paul Ziemkiewicz pulls off a winding country road at a stream about 45 kilometers east of Morgantown, West Virginia. The water is about as acidic as vinegar, he says. It's "100% fatal" to aquatic life.

MORGANTOWN — Various aspects of how the Mountain State can improve its economy through somewhat unconventional means were detailed by West Virginia University faculty and staff Monday morning.

Natural gas production in the US is at an all-time high, according to the latest reports from the US Energy Information Administration. But the dramatic growth of shale gas over the past decade, made possible by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has led to huge volumes of salty wastewater called brine or produced water.

As the fracking industry improves its efficiency by drilling ever-longer horizontal wells, it also increases the amount of water it uses to fracture the rock to release the gas. The fracturing process uses on average about 45 million L of water for a single horizontal well, according to the Groundwater Protection Council (GWPC), a group of state oil and gas regulators and environmental protection agencies.

Opinion piece by The Exponent Telegram

Working with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, WVU and the West Virginia Water Research Institute have secured a $5 million grant to develop methods to retrieve rare earth elements (REEs) from acid mine drainage and fly ash.

The West Virginia Water Research Institute (WVWRI) is requesting proposals for research expected to be funded March 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Department of the Interior, will sponsor the research. Faculty from all West Virginia colleges and universities are encouraged to submit proposals. Funding selected proposals is dependent upon the availability of funds. It is expected that 3-5 projects will be funded in the range of $10,000 – $20,000 each. It is expected that approximately $70,000 will be available for new projects in 2020.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia University has been awarded $5 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to scale up its successful Rare Earth Recovery Project, which will include building a facility at a new acid mine drainage treatment plant near Mount Storm.

MORGANTOWN — The development of a steady domestic supply of crucial rare-earth elements has been in the works for some time, and mining engineers at West Virginia University are among those working toward that goal.

Scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium are the 17 REEs. These elements play a vital role in technologies ranging from green energy and consumer electronics to missile defense systems and aerospace applications.