WVUToday: WVU receives $1.7 million for environmental research center

Comment: This blog hopes this will put an end to Mt. Top Removal, known to destroy our rivers and streams. The State of Virginia should consider the problems of our rivers if VA allows uranium mining throughout the whole state! No to Mt. Top Removal and No to Uranium Mining!
October 20th, 2009

West Virginia is often the front line in the battle between competing concerns of economic development and environmental protection. A new research center at West Virginia University will try to help reconcile those seemingly incompatible interests.

WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences has received $1.7 million from the “United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)”: to establish an Environmental Research Center.

“The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for citizens of West Virginia and beyond,” said Jim Anderson, professor of wildlife and fisheries resources, associate director of the Natural Resource Analysis Center in the WVU Davis College, and the director of the Environmental Research Center.

The center will focus its efforts on the mid-Atlantic Highlands region, extending from southern Virginia to southern New York and including all of West Virginia.

“The region has one of the most ecologically diverse floral and faunal assemblages in the United States,” Anderson said. “Moreover headwater streams flow to both the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico; factors affecting the highlands also affect coastal zones.”

A number of environmental factors affect the mid-Atlantic Highlands’ land, water, air, and inhabitants. Air quality issues include changing levels of greenhouse gases.

Water quality is impacted by acid mine drainage, sedimentation, waste water, and other factors. Invasive plants, microbes, animals, and fungi impact the forests, streams, fields, wetlands and agricultural areas in the region. Social concerns such as low civic engagement, high unemployment, and an aging population compound these issues.

To address these issues, center participants plan to develop an interdisciplinary environmental research program with an emphasis on watersheds, sustainability, environmental restoration, biodiversity, energy and rural development.

“We hope to serve as an impartial liaison between various grass-roots environmental groups, resource management agencies, businesses and industries to effectively create and promote new policies that will lead to a healthy environment and a strong economy,” Anderson said.

To read the whole article click below:
http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/n/2009/10/20/wvu-receives-1-7-million-for-environmental-research-center

The appropriation will be administered by the WVU Research Corporation.
-WVU-dw/10/20/09WVU News on the Web – http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/