Photo by Gage Vota Belmont County Board of Commissioners Vince Gianangeli, on left, and J.P. Dutton are questioned by Land & Liberty Coalition Ohio senior field manager Nick Bundren about the county’s interest in renewable energy.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Land & Liberty Coalition Ohio senior field manager Nick Bundren held an impromptu question-and-answer session with the Belmont County Board of Commissioners during its Wednesday meeting’s open public forum.

The Land & Liberty Coalition seeks to provide a forum for those within the community who already support utility-scale renewable energy projects coming into their community. It works to spread awareness, offer resources to those looking to learn more about proposed projects.

Bundren, who has been with the nonprofit coalition since 2018, said the group works to build conservative support for renewable energy across Ohio, but the purpose of Wednesday’s visit was to learn from the county commissioners about their experiences with renewable energy.

Belmont County marked Bundren’s 56th county he has visited in Ohio since he began the initiative in January.

Two of the three Belmont County commissioners, J.P. Dutton and Vince Gianangeli were present for Wednesday’s meeting, while Commissioner Jerry Echemann was absent.

Bundren asked on a scale of 0-10 how familiar the commissioners were with solar power.

Dutton said he believes he’s fairly familiar with solar power, while Gianangeli said Dutton was more well-versed in the subject.

“I’m in my first term as commissioner,” Gianangeli said. “With that said, I have 40 years of public service experience although my background is mostly accounting. So as far as your gauge is concerned, I’m probably halfway.”

Bundren then asked the board if the county has encountered any renewable energy projects, to which Dutton replied, not to this point.

Bundren asked if the board thinks party politics plays a role in support or opposition for renewable energy in the state of Ohio or in Belmont County. Dutton replied that he doesn’t believe party politics plays any role at all.

“I think Ohio is a long time energy state, a lot of energy experience. I’d like to think it’s all based on the best use of property and what that energy fuel source is,” Dutton said. “I wouldn’t think party politics would have anything to do with it, just what land is available and what it can be utilized for.”

Bundren asked if the county had any brownfields and if so if the county would be interested in using old coal fields and turning them into either wind energy or solar energy areas.

Dutton confirmed that the county does have brownfields just like many other counties. He said that some of the brownfields have industrial backgrounds, such as former coal plant sites.

“Do I think that solar panels will be the way to go for that property? Me, personally, I wouldn’t think that would be the case,” Dutton said. “I’d like to see something that would be a little bit more heavy industrial, a little bit more of an employee base, those types of things. Hopefully there’s still the opportunities for reinvestment in some of the fossil technologies that were on those properties in the first place.”

Gianangeli added that the county does have two branches of economic development already, the Belmont County Port Authority and The Community Improvement Corporation.

“Those are the two branches that would inform us of different brownfield operations. I believe CIC is actually working with one down in Bellaire which is along the river now,” he said.