By Ken Ward, Jr.Staff Writer
The Charleston Gazette, Friday, June 27, 1997
Artist's renderings have drawn a lofty picture of the old FMC East Plant's possible future, but such projects are probably still years away, company officials said Thursday night.
FMC made ammonia, caustic solution and bleach on the 27-acre site between 1948 and the East Plant closing in 1984.
The site sits 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.
FMC proposed the site as the pilot project in the state's new brownfields program to encourage cleanup and development of old industrial sites.
The company filed an application for the brownfields program with the state Division of Environmental Protection earlier this month.
FMC officials, along with a team of consultants and publicists, held a 45-minute public meeting on the proposal Thursday night at South Charleston City Hall. About 30 people, mostly former FMC employees who received letters about the project from FMC, attended.
Jim Bodamer, FMC's project manager, displayed colorful drawings that showed possible future uses of the site. The drawings show retail store, light industry and even an ice rink proposed by the city.
"Those are conceptual drawings based on some initial local interest," Bodamer said. "(But) it's based on people who have the funds to do that. There are people interested in that particular area."
Bodamer said tests of the types and amounts of pollution at the site won't be completed until August. At that point, they will be submitted to DEP. The company hopes to have an initial agreement with DEP about a cleanup plan by the end of the year.
It's too soon yet to say what the cleanup plan will be, or exactly how long the cleanup will take, he said.
"It's too early to really tell," Bodamer said. "It's new for (DEP) and it's new for us."
One resident questioned why the drawings showed lots of trees and shrubs at the site. He said the ground was dead there and he didn't know if anything would grow.
"If you're going to grow anything there, you'd have to put down some topsoil," Bodamer replied. "But it could be in an above-ground box. It wouldn't have to be in the ground."
The resident replied, "You call it brownfields, but in my mind it would be better to make it greenfields."
"You could do that, but it wouldn't be very practical," Bodamer said.
Another resident complained that environmental rules will mean it takes too long to clean up the site and create new jobs there.
Bodamer conceded the process will be time-consuming. FMC might not implement some parts of the cleanup until 1999, he said.
"We still have some more investigations and more risk assessments to do," Bodamer said. "You're working toward development, but development has to take place hand-in-hand with the cleanup."