Environmental Standards, Inc.’s (Environmental Standards’) client, Merit Development, Inc. (Merit), was honored at the West Virginia Brownfields Conference earlier this month. Merit received the Environmental Impact Award for its work at the Owens Illinois Glass plant property in Fairmont, West Virginia. The Environmental Impact Award recognizes a project, organization, or community that has made a significant impact on the cleanup of environmental hazards.
Merit purchased the abandoned glass plant property in 2015 and entered into a Voluntary Remediation Agreement with the WVDEP Office of Environmental Remediation to revitalize the site. Lydia Work, Licensed Remediation Specialist and Senior Quality Assurance Chemist at Environmental Standards, worked closely with Merit providing quality oversight of the remediation project. The project area is very large and has many complicated issues which have kept other developers and public entities from committing to the task of redeveloping. With Ms. Work’s assistance, Merit Development tackled those tasks and continues to move forward in the development of the site. Russell Bolyard of Merit said, “I couldn’t have done it without Lydia.”