Editorial
Charleston Daily Mail, Saturday, June 14, 1997
On paper, the compromise reached by environmentalists and lawmakers looks good. The state agreed to bend a little to encourage companies to clean up old industrial sites so they can be re-used.
But will this brownfields legislation work?
FMC Corp. is offering the new law a good test. FMC wants to give the city of South Charleston 27 acres of riverfront property that was the site of a chemical plant that FMC closed 12 years ago.
The site is in a great location, right across from the mound. It is a flat spot in a bumpy state. It is a nice place to build a shopping center or-dare children dream?-an ice skating rink.
There's just one problem: What's in the ground?
For nearly 80 years, beginning in 1906, plants at the site produced chemicals. That left the ground contaminated by compounds including carbon tetrachloride, tetrachloroethane and benzene hexachloride.
Obviously, land with a legacy like that could never be cleaned up enough to attract homeowners. But might it work as a commercial site?
The potential for success is enormous. If the brownfields legislation can be made to work here, it would encourage other site redevelopment across West Virginia.
The potential for failure is almost as large. State officials flexing the powers of this legislation for the first time should be careful not to give away the store in negotiating just how far reclamation efforts should go.
What's needed here is a cool, calm exercise in optimism and skepticism.
Still, this is a good opportunity to test landmark legislation. Negotiation of the brownfields law to two sides working together to do something.
Now to put their plan into action.