T-L Photo/KAILEY CARPINO The Harrison County Board of Commissioners meets in regular session Wednesday morning. Members include, from left, Amy Norris, Paul Coffland and Dustin Corder.

CADIZ — The Harrison County Board of Commissioners discussed plans for a tri-state regional hydrogen hub on Wednesday.

The hydrogen hub will produce, store and make use of hydrogen fuel with the purpose of creating clean energy and reducing carbon emissions. Once the project is completed, the fuel can be used for electricity and transportation.

Nick Homrighausen, executive director of Community Economic Development of Harrison County Community Improvement Corp., discussed progress on the tri-state regional hydrogen hub project. Homrighausen said that the hub will be funded through grants from the Department of Energy.

“The hydrogen hub makes a lot of sense with our robust industry that we have within the tri-state region and with the oil and gas potential of our region,” he said.

Homrighausen explained that the hydrogen hub will not be a physical plant or building.

“What we’re understanding is it’s a series of pipelines and entities spread throughout a very large area in the tri-state region, which means you’re going to have different pockets of the entities and pipelines from some of the larger metropolitan areas within West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” he said.

Homrighausen said the project is still in its early stages and he does not know how long the project will take to reach completion.

“There’s going to be a lot of players involved in this. It’s a very complex, long-term project that we’re still kind of understanding as we get into this further. We obviously don’t know how it’s going to play out,” he said.

Homrighausen said that the CIC is a member of the Hydrogen Hub Coalition and is currently working with Jobs Ohio and Ohio Southeast Economic Development on this project.

In other news, Dave Wheeler, vice president of Harrison County CIC, said the organization is looking for potential industrial park sites in the county to bring more industry to the area. He said that CIC is ranking the sites based on many factors, the top priority being the location of the site.

“We have ranked them based on their proximity to utilities, railroads, highways and state routes,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler said he also plans to establish more communication between the county CIC and the Village of Cadiz CIC to work more closely with them in the future.

The commissioners also discussed allotting $185,000 from the Harrison County general fund to complete the new addition to the Harrison County Home. The groundbreaking for this project took place in October. The 5,300-square-foot addition will include new office and social space for the residents. The board members all voted in favor of the motion.

The board also awarded H&H Environmental the bid for asbestos removal at 143 S. Main St. in New Athens and at 232 Jamison Ave. in Cadiz.