By Kelly Regan
Staff Writer
The Charleston Gazette, Monday, March 5, 2001

If all goes as planned, a doctor's office and an auto repair shop will be built this summer on a chemical company's polluted South Charleston property, the state's first major brownfield redevelopment site.

In 1985, FMC razed its chlorine and caustic soda plant. Since then, 25 acres have sat vacant and polluted off MacCorkle Avenue in the center of South Charleston.

The FMC South Charleston site has undergone a major cleanup. In this photo, taken early last year, barrels of contaminated soil await shipment from the area.

In 1997, FMC became the first company to agree to a cleanup program created the year before in the state Legislature, and since then, workers have tested groundwater and hauled soil from the site.

In May or June, the state Division of Environmental Protection plans to sign off on a 5-acre certificate of completion for redevelopment, said David Hight, project manager in the Office of Environmental Remediation.

"That's the purpose of the program: to see the sites cleaned up and put back into productive use," Hight said.

"Forty-four brownfield sites in the state are enrolled in the voluntary cleanup program, and only one - a former gas station in Fairmont - has been used for new development. A brownfield site is any vacant lot with environmental contamination.

The South Charleston site is behind a Rite-Aid drugstore and across from the Indian Mound on U.S. 60. Next month, South Charleston Planning Commission members will vote on whether to subdivide 2 acres for Holzer Clinic's Health and Rehabilitation Center and 3 acres for Joe Holland Chevrolet and Imports.

Construction plans aren't set in stone, said Matt Johnson, operations director of Holzer Clinic Health and Rehabilitation, and Joey Holland, president of Joe Holland Chevrolet and Imports.

"We have hopes to do some expansion, but it's still nothing concrete," Holland said.

He wants to demolish his dealership's existing service center, use that property to increase car sales and build a new service center on the FMC site.

"We haven't signed anything. We are certainly working together with FMC to make it happen, and I think they have a high level of interest in making it happen, as do we," Holland said.

The groundwater beneath the FMC property is polluted and will remain that way for years to come.

"Whoever owns that property can never drill to the groundwater and make use of the groundwater," Hight said.

Holland and Johnson said they aren't concerned about the remaining chemical pollution.

"We're becoming more comfortable with it as we learn more about what they've done to clean up the site," Holland said.

"Obviously, we wouldn't proceed if we weren't 100 percent sure that it was safe," Johnson said.

Johnson wants to build a new medical office on the FMC property. He currently employs 40 people at Holzer's Health and Rehabilitation Center nearby.

Bill Currey, owner of Greenbrier Realty, is marketing FMC's property. Once the 3-acre and 2-acre lots are sold, he will concentrate on selling a sought-after piece of land fronting MacCorkle Avenue beside Rite Aid.

"[FMC's] very pleased with the progress toward development that's occurring," Currey said.

"This is the most complicated redevelopment project ever to occur since the [brownfields] bill was passed. ... We're redeveloping property that's never been on the market in the history of South Charleston."

Frank Mullens, chairman of the city's planning commission, said he hopes the remaining land will be used for light industrial development.

"That's obviously a positive for our community," Mullens said.

Under the 1996 brownfields law, the state agrees not to take action against companies that want to develop such sites if the cleanups conducted meet the requirements of prior agreements with DEP.