Jim Balow
March 19, 2002
THAT RAT-TAT-TAT noise you hear these days near the Mound in South Charleston, or maybe inside the Rite Aid store across MacCorkle Avenue, is the sound of progress.
It's coming from a 750-pound hammer - a jackhammer on steroids - operated by a worker from IT Corp. at the old FMC East Plant. Since November, about a dozen contractors have been pounding apart old building foundations, trucking away contaminated soil, grading a future city street and preparing two building sites.
FMC has agreed already to sell the sites: about 3 3/4 acres to Joe Holland Chevrolet and Imports and 1 3/4 acres to the Holzer Clinic Health and Rehabilitation Center.
"We would hope to deliver the sites to Holland and Holzer by mid-May," said Bob Smering, the on-site coordinator for FMC.
It's not the first part of the 27-acre site FMC has cleaned up and sold - it previously sold sites to Holzer, Rite Aid and an auto parts store - and it won't be the last.
"This is going so well FMC is considering expanding it to area 1, which is east of Rite Aid," Smering told visitors on a tour of the site last week.
"That area isn't sold yet, but by preparing it early we would hope to attract a buyer. It's in the hands of a Realtor. We didn't decide to pull out the foundations until last week."
The ideal buyer would be a light business, he said, not a manufacturer or private residence. "Something similar to what has already come in with the Holland property or the Rite Aid."
FMC is spending millions of dollars to clean up what it calls its East Plant site under what is commonly called the "brownfields" law, which the Legislature passed in 1996. FMC is not cleaning the property as a brownfield site but under another section of the law called voluntary remediation.
As the very first company to clean up a contaminated site under the 1996 law, FMC is in effect breaking new ground.
"We call it our pilot program," said David Hight, the man from the Division of Environmental Remediation that the state Department of Environmental Protection assigned to the project. Hight was on site last week, taking samples of contaminated waste for testing.
FMC manufactured chemicals at the site from 1948 to 1985, but other companies made chemicals there as far back as World War I. FMC simply dismantled its plant and bulldozed the property in 1985 and '86, and the land sat idle until 1998.
"We used to manufacture ammonia, carbon tetrachloride and carbon bisulfide," Smering said. "Those were used in industry as cleaning compounds and swimming pool chemicals. There's a lot of concrete and rubble, which is what we're pulling out.
"Some of the soil was high in constituents like carbon tet and ammonia and carbon disulfide. The soils we're removing are going to a landfill, not a hazardous landfill.
"We sent 5,700 tons of soil to a non-hazardous landfill. We'll send another 300 tons on March 25 and we have another 4,000 tons ready for dispersal." At 15 tons per truckload, that makes about 667 truckloads so far.
"The actual hazardous materials are small. Only one truckload will go to a hazardous landfill - some of the railroad ties, pieces of concrete with tar on them. But it's a very small amount, eight to 10 tons of material."
FMC is getting rid of most of the old concrete foundations on site. After testing to make sure noise levels were within OSHA standards, it bought in a pulverizer that separates reinforcement bars from old foundations and a crusher that chews up concrete into small chunks that can be used for fill material. As an added benefit, it cut down on the number of trucks rumbling through downtown, Smering said.
Of greater concern to the DEP is the soil that lies somewhat deeper - from about 30 feet down to groundwater, Hight said.
"There really wasn't much contamination of the surface," he said. "It will be 100 percent fit for use. It's the deeper soils. It's too deep to physically get to." To treat these soils, and prevent contamination of the groundwater, DEP has agreed to a pilot project to inject chemicals into the soil and treat the contaminated deep soils on site. "It breaks them down into other chemicals that are less harmful," he said.
"We will be monitoring the groundwater in the future," he said. "It's experimental. It's the first time it's been tried in this state."
Smering, a 26-year FMC veteran, said he's glad to see the voluntary remediation program come along. "It's a lot better way to do things. It's beneficial for everybody. You're not in an adversarial relationship with anybody. I don't know why it's taken industry so long to get to where they are now."
Mike Dorsey, assistant director of the DEP Division of Waste Management, pointed out some of the advantages of the voluntary program. FMC was one of the main backers of the original legislation.
Had FMC not volunteered to clean up its site, it eventually could have been declared a federal Superfund site.
"You don't get the lawsuits and the lawyers," Dorsey said. "So that's a big plus. You can almost always save money. The other big plus they get out of the program is they get a covenant from the state not to sue."
The freedom from liability goes not just to FMC but to lenders, developers and subsequent owners and operators of the site.
"When you look at it, no one would have bought this if they had done nothing," he said. "It would have been a great white elephant.
"We're happy they're doing that. They seem to be ... pretty good actors."
Joey Holland, president of the Holland dealership, said it took him a while to get comfortable with the idea of building on the site.
"There was certainly some concern going in which we worked out with FMC and the DEP," he said. "We worked for over a year on liability concerns. We weren't going to put our customers into any liability situations. I've been assured by the DEP that this property is as clean as what we've been on for years and years."
Holland plans to build a state-of-the-art service and parts facility for both Chevies and imports. The $2.5 million, 46,000-square-foot building will have 45 service bays and 260 parking spaces. "We have 28 service bays now, so it's a considerable expansion. We hope to be in toward the end of the year if things go as planned."
The FMC site became available just when Holland's architects told him they could not squeeze a new showroom and service facility on his existing property, he said. He was already thinking about moving - maybe to Corridor G, maybe to Kanawha City.
The service facility is just phase one of Holland's plans. In phase two, he will knock down some old buildings he's acquired along 7th Avenue, like the old Rose City Cafeteria and a former state liquor store, then build a new showroom for new Chevrolet cars and trucks immediately behind the existing Chevy showroom on MacCorkle. He would then tear down the existing showroom and park new vehicles out front. The cost? Another $2 million to $2.5 million.
"If the economy is going well - I'm trusting the Lord will let us know - we would begin as soon as phase one is completed," he said. "It could be 2003."
Holzer officials did not return calls seeking information about their plans for their project. Developer Doug Skaff of Mound Properties LLC said Holzer plans to add 16,000 square feet to its clinic but referred further questions to Holzer officials.
Holland had plenty of praise for everyone concerned. "It was a long but pleasurable process. It's going to be a major improvement. The city will benefit. The customers will benefit. FMC will benefit. It's really an example of win win win.
"That's a big positive for the state. FMC spent a lot of money to bring it up to standards."
To contact staff writer Jim Balow, e-mail balow@wvgazette.com or call
348-5102.