By Ken Ward, Jr.Staff Writer
The Charleston Gazette, Thursday, May 7, 1998
State regulators have reached an agreement with FMC Corp. to clean up the company's old East Plant in South Charleston, officials announced Wednesday.
The agreement is the first time an old industrial site will be cleaned under the state's new brownfields law.
No plans have been made, though, on what kind of businesses might be located on the site after the cleanup, said Jim Bodamer, a project spokesman for FMC, said in a prepared statement.
However, Rite Aid Corp. is building a new retail store and regional offices on the corner of the property near Ashby Street and MacCorkle Avenue.
Terradon, a Charleston consulting firm working on the project, issued a news release late Wednesday afternoon to announce the cleanup agreement.
The release provided no details of what kind of cleanup work will be performed. Officials from DEP and FMC could not be reached.
Gov. Cecil Underwood and Robert Fields, an FMC vice president, have scheduled a news conference for Monday to discuss the agreement.
FMC made ammonia, caustic solution and bleach on the 27-acre East Plant site between 1948 and 1984.
The site is adjacent to the FMC steam plant near the sprawling Union Carbide South Charleston plant, just across from the Mound. Other companies made a variety of chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride, on the site starting in 1915.
In 1996, the Legislature approved the state's Voluntary Remediation and Redevelopment Act to encourage the cleanup of old industrial sites for future development.
In June 1997, FMC proposed the East Plant site as a pilot project for the program, commonly referred to as brownfields.
In the joint FMC-DEP press release, DEP brownfields program chief Ken Ellison said, "There is a huge learning curve with the startup of any new regulatory program, and FMC has been very patient while we work out the details."