Dow shows interest in FMC
vacant property
Charleston Daily Mail,
WV
George Hohmann
August 14, 2002_________________________________________________________
The Dow Chemical Co is talking to FMC Corp. about the vacant property FMC has for sale in South Charleston, company spokesman said.
FMC Spokesman Bill Granville said rumors that FMC’s steam plant is for sale are not true.
“I can tell you unequivocally that we are not looking to sell the steam plant because we need that for our hydrogen peroxide plant,” Granville said today.
Dow spokesman Jerry Ring said Dow has been talking to FMC about the vacant land that is for sale on the site formerly accupied by FMC’s East Plant.
“We heard that the property that they own might be for sale and we called them,” Ring said. “We’ve had a few early conversations about what they would like to do in terms of selling the property.”
Ring said the discussions started about a month ago.
“There are no conclusions or outcomes at this point,” he said. “You need to ask them, but I’m sure they are talking to others, as well.”
Indeed, FMC has been working to return the land once occupied by its East Plant site to productive use. The East Plant was demolished in 1985. The site was the first to enter West Virginia’s brownfields program, which is designed to help redevelop former industrial sites.
An Advance Auto Parts store was built on a lot facing MacCorkle Avenue in 1994 and a Rite Aid pharmacy was built on a lot facing MacCorkle in 1998.
Several vacant parcels were put in the hands of a local real estate agent in February 2000. Last year FMC sold a 1.7 acre lot to Mound Properties for a Holzer Clinic addition and about 4 acres to Joe Holland Chevrolet Inc. for an automobile service and parts operation.
Jim Bodamer, manager of FMC’s remediation project in South Charleston, said FMC is finishing the cleanup of 3.5 acres fronting MacCorkle Avenue. “Thate should be available for sale by the end of August,” he said.
In the center of the former East Plant property, next to the hydrogen reformer, there are seven to eight acres that are contaminated with carbon tetrachloride, Bodamer said. We have to clean up the soils, so that’s not going to be available for several years,” he said.
Granville said, “The only thing that is up for sale is the property that we are remediating.”
Although the East Plant is gone, FMC still has three facilities in South Charleston: the steam plant on MacCorkle Avenue, a hydrogen reformer and a hydrogen peroxide plant.
The steam plant is just south of Dow’s South Charleston plant fence line. It supplies steam to FMC’s hydrogen reformer, which sits south of the FMC steam plant; FMC’s hydrogen peroxide plant, which is across MacCorkle Avenue, near the south end of the South Charleston Industrial Park; and Dow Chemical’s South Charleston Technical Center, on the hillside above.
Granville said FMC’s hydrogen peroxide plant is an ongoing operation. “We need the steam (from FMC’s steam plant) and we need the hydrogen reformer and both of those facilities are at the East Plant site,” he said. “So in our negotiations with anyone, those would have to be taken into consideration.”
FMC owns and operates the steam plant with 14 to 17 of its own employees, Granville said. Air Products and Chemicals Inc. operates the hydrogen reformer on a lease agreement, he said.
The FMC steam plant is tied to Clearon Corp.’s South Charleston plant. Eddie Miles, the Clearon plant’s safety manager, said Clearon has the potential to take steam from the FMC plant but has not done so on a regular basis since the mid to late 1990s.
Dow has a power generating station inside its South Charleston plant. Ring said Dows powerhouse “supplies all of the steam for our production facilities in South Charleston as well as about 25 percent of the power that we need.”
Writer George Hohmann can be reached at 348-4836 or by e-mail at business@dailymail.com