Campus News

Hannah leads charge against 'red blob'

Coalfield Development's revitalization work examined in JCLS

Jacob Hannah is committed to beating "the red blob."

Hannah, a 2015 Garrett College graduate who serves as chief executive officer of the nonprofit Coalfield Development, introduced the "red blob" at last Wednesday's Joan Crawford Lecture Series presentation. It appeared in a trio of color-coded graphics, starting with one that identified 800,000 West Virginia acres of "abandoned mine lands that need to be reclaimed or remediated in some way after they've been mined," said Hannah.

The second graphic depicted West Virginia counties containing the abandoned mines that Hannah said were part of "the bottom tier of economic development or prosperity."

"Not a lot of jobs, not a lot of development or economic opportunity," he said. "If you were to zoom out and look nationwide, this would be the largest concentration of economic dilapidation in America."

Hannah said the economic circumstances in the identified counties were directly linked to the decline of the coal mining industry.

"A lot of the coal mines have declined in their operations and some have declared bankruptcy, and therefore these sites have just been left behind with nothing to restore them or repurpose them," said Hannah. "That creates a lot of iron oxide runoff, turns your creeks green, creates a lot of soil erosion, etc."

The red area in the final graphic illustrated Mingo County's position at the epicenter of health-related challenges.

"The darker the red, the worse your health indicators are," he explained. "On average, folks in Mingo County live approximately 20 years shorter than other counties around them just because of all of these factors. The town I live in – Huntington, West Virginia – has the highest opioid overdose rate in all of America. We're experiencing a lot of challenges."

While Coalfield Development began with a $1500 loan for a single housing project, the organization is now focused on a collaboration model aimed at bringing its mission to scale throughout Southern West Virginia.

"We know we can't do all the work, and this isn't a business model that's just a touchy-feely nonprofit – this makes ‘dollars-and-cents sense,' " said Hannah. "And so we built a coalition of about 50 different partners, all in West Virginia, including the two largest universities, the two largest cities, a whole bunch of nonprofits, for-profits, unions, and community members."

The timing for the coalition – the ACT Now Coalition for Appalachian Climate Technology – was perfect, according to Hannah.

"In the last four years we saw the largest federal funding oriented towards Appalachia since LBJ's war on poverty," said Hannah. "No one's big enough to pull down that funding alone."

Hannah detailed $723 million in federal aid that ACT Now has acquired for rural West Virginia extraction communities. A significant part of that funding has gone for solar projects, including $129 million of funding for solar on top of mine lands.

"This project is the very first of its kind to deploy solar panels on former coal mines that have been left behind," said Hannah. "So those sites are still producing energy now, but in a way that is mining the sun instead."

Hannah said Coalfield Development, headquartered in Huntington, was started in 2010 with the mission "to empower the people to transform the places that then generate prosperity." The results to date are impressive:

• Over 3,800 people trained in new and sustainable sectors;
• 360,000 square feet of abandoned property redeveloped;
• Over 800 new jobs created; and
• 12 different communities that have begun replicating the model.

Hannah emphasized that these results didn't happen overnight.

"It took time, but once you get momentum it's exponential. There is a lot of learning, a lot of trial and error, that we went through," said Hannah, adding, "Others don't have to...go through the headaches that we went through. That's why we're trying to do more events like this one to share what worked, what didn't work, and how we can collaborate together."

Coalfield Development has faced some daunting challenges in revitalizing these communities, summarized by a slide in Hannah's presentation.

Forty percent of the residents in these coal-impacted regions are justice system-involved, while 30 percent are involved in the addiction recovery system. West Virginia has the lowest percentage of people with driver's licenses in the U.S., the lowest labor participation rate in the country, and the nation's highest opiate overdose rate.

"Those are the people we primarily focus on. If someone needs an opportunity and wouldn't have one otherwise, that's who we recruit," he said.

Coalfield's people-oriented training plan is centered around what Hannah called a "33-6-3" work-week model.

"That's 33 hours of paid, on-the-job training, whether it's construction, agriculture, woodworking, light manufacturing, etc.," Hannah explained. "Six hours a week, they're at a place like Garrett [College], getting their higher education that we help to pay for. Three hours a week they're removing barriers like getting a driver's license.

"It's really trying to make it people-centered, in the community to empower the individuals of the community to be able to engage in exciting new opportunities," continued Hannah. "The key is not just a free training; it's consistent barrier removal and consistent, paid on-the-job training."

Hannah said the model recognizes that training can't compete with pressing, day-to-day necessities like "putting bread on the table."

"No one needs to have to decide between the two – this is combining both of them," he said.

The "places" component of the Coalfield model focuses on renovating and repurposing abandoned spaces – factories, warehouses, schools, etc. – within impacted communities. He highlighted a vacant factory that used to make men's clothing and was slated for demolition.

"It's been repurposed as a hub . . . for new businesses to be incubated: agriculture, light manufacturing, woodworking," said Hannah. "It's got renewable energy – the largest solar array for a nonprofit in the state on our roof, offsetting all of our energy costs. And that's just one of several."

Another example is the redevelopment of a factory that at one time made coal trains.

"It was shut down for 20 years and was very contaminated," said Hannah. "We received a $500,000 grant through the EPA to clean up its soil. It's got a clean bill of health, and now we've got an $18 million grant to renovate it. We're going to turn it into a hub for workforce development for construction, renewables, etc."

In order to reach scale in revitalizing southern West Virginia, Coalfield has supported organizations across a wide field of sectors.

"To date, we've incubated about 92 different social enterprises, nonprofits, LLC's [Limited Liability Corporations], sole proprietors, benefits corporations," said Hannah. "They span everything from agriculture hubs to renewable energy . . to light manufacturing initiatives to other construction companies.

"We don't see it as competition if someone else pops up and does this model as well," he added. "We see that as expansion of the work. We can't tackle the big red blob by ourselves. There's got to be other folks to do this."

The Joan Crawford Lecture Series honors dynamic educator Joan R. Crawford, who died in 2010 after serving the Garrett College community for 30 years in a variety of faculty and staff roles.