HUNTINGTON -- Right now there are thousands of areas across the state that are deemed 'Brownfield ' sites.  These  are areas where Industry's have left the ground contaminated and unusable, either through chemical or abandond building contamination. But now, there's an effort underway that could put grass in your gas tank and help clean up mining sites.

But now, the State of West Virginia has decided to do something about it.  A check for $550,000 was presented during opening remarks at the 2008 West Virginia Brownfields Conference, at Huntington's  Pullman Plaza Hotel.  "We want to see those put back into a renewable energy product," said Randy Huffman, Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Huffman explains that the leftover surface mines leave behind commercially used land that is not attractive to developers and therefore qualifies under the Brownfields criteria.  Although, the land is not attractive to everyone, West Virginia University researchers are very interested in all of it.

During the two day Brownfields Conference where a number of topics are being discussed the word switchgrass is thrown around a lot.  So you maybe asking yourself what exactly is switchgrass?

Switchgrass is a native grass of West Virginia that runs along most roadways throughout the state.  What Officials want to do is to turn this switchgrass into fuel for cars.  "What we want to find out is what kind of production you can get off these sites. What kind of conversion you can get to cellulosic ethanol what the transportation value is for that crop," said Paul Ziemkiewicz, Director of West Virginia Water Research Institute.

It's not just how much of this grass can be produced to create ethanol, it's also how small of an impact it will have on our nation's food supply, that has researchers interested.  The use of corn in the production of ethanol has taken about 20 percent of the nation's supply. Switchgrass on the other hand, no impact and is a win- win according to researchers.

"That's a zero sum game in a sense here we're actually creating new agricultural land where no other crop can be grown," said Ziemkiewicz.

Right now they're looking at about 450,000 acres of surface mining land available for planting across the State.  And it's not just switchgrass they're looking into. With so much land available the opportunities are endless according to Director Ziemkiewicz.  "There might be about 80% good for switchgrass. You might put wind turbines in place to power the local operations and on the steep slopes you might have a forestry operations," he said.

Besides environmental benefits, the development has the potentional to spill millions of dollars into the economy.  Ultimately for the DEP and for Governor Manchin, the greatest benefit is for the environment.  "We need to make sure the land is put back in a way that provides as much or more benefit in the future than what it did before the coal was mined," said Huffman.

The initial stage of development and research for the sustainable energy parks will determine all the sites eligible for the project. Already, researchers are testing switchgrass planting options on top of a surface mine in Logan, Mingo and Mineral counties.