Published: November 06, 2009 10:21 pm      

DEP: Bluefield one of six ‘clean communities’

BLUEFIELD — The efforts of volunteers and city of Bluefield employees who are committed to making the community a cleaner and prettier place, was rewarded on Friday when the Make it Shine Program named Bluefield one of six communities statewide to be honored with a “West Virginia Make It Shine Clean Community Award.”

“This is so exciting,” Angie Foley, administrative assistant to Bluefield City Manager Andy Merriman said. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I saw the ‘Community Award Program’ requirements come across my desk and I knew we were already doing everything we needed to earn the award.”

Bluefield Mayor Linda Whalen expressed her appreciation for Foley for taking a leadership role in assembling all the data needed to submit a successful entry for the program.

“I knew we had done a lot, but when Angie pulled it all together to look at it, it was really quite impressive,” Whalen said. “It’s an amazing process. We have a lot of volunteers out working, and when we clean up one area, neighbors get excited about cleaning up their neighborhood.

“It’s how we can turn the whole city around,” Whalen said. “We’re looking better. We’re coming along. We are just thrilled with this award.”

The West Virginia Make it Shine Community Awards program was established in April 1993. Clean Community Awards are based on 10 specific criteria including: Community cleanup, a recycling program, youth participation, Adopt-A-Highway, illegal dump cleanup, public land improvement and beautification, community environmental education program, river or stream cleanup program, Earth Day and miscellaneous projects.

Foley compiled a detailed three page synopsis of the many projects undertaken by the Bluefield Beautification Commission, the Bluefield Tree Board, scores of neighborhood and community groups, Bluefield State College students, illegal dump cleanup projects by the Mercer County Day Report Center, the new entrance signs to Bluefield as well as the city’s on-going demolition of dilapidated structures program among much more.

In addition to the three-page narrative, the entry Foley prepared included an additional 20 pages of photographs and newspaper clippings concerning the various programs she mentioned in the application.

“I attended a couple of the Mercer County Make it Shine meetings, and I was familiar with the effort in Bluefield,” Travis Cooper, coordinator of the state Make it Shine Program said. The program is operated out of the state Department of Environmental Protection. Cooper is the REAP (Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan) coordinator for the DEP.

“Applications go out to all of the communities in the state,” Cooper said. “I was real impressed by what I saw in Bluefield. The Beautification Commission is active, but there are also a lot of volunteers involved. I believe this is the first time Bluefield has received this award.”

Bluefield is the largest city to be honored this year. Other communities included in the group of honorees include the city of Dunbar, the city of Ranson, the town of Fayetteville, the village of Beech Bottom and the town of West Union.

Cooper said the number of awards varies from year to year. “Last year, we awarded four Make it Shine Community Awards,” Cooper said. “This year, we awarded six.”

Cooper said each community honored will receive two signs to erect at the entrances to the community announcing that they are Make it Shine Award recipients.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com