The key to redevelopment of the Avtex Fibers plant is what happens to the title to the 400-acre site in bankruptcy proceedings, an Environmental Protection Agency attorney said Wednesday night at a meeting the agency held in Front Royal.

Wayne Walters said there are a number of claimants to the property of the bankrupt estate, including insurance companies that lent heavily to Avtex during the 1980s; the federal government; the state; and a former owner of the site, the FMC Corp., which is responsible for part of the cleanup.

The title of the property cannot be released until bankruptcy issues are settled, he said.

The EPA has a policy by which it will agree not to sue a prospective buyer of Superfund property if the company pays a premium that would go toward cleanup, Walters said. When the title is transferred, the EPA will be willing to begin negotiations to determine if that process is possible, he said. The decision is up to the Department of Justice.

"No company has come forward and said we're going to pay a significant amount of money to help the cleanup," Walters said.

To make an offer to the federal government, "you've got to have first a settlement between FMC, the bankruptcy trustee and those insurance companies as to what's going to happen to the property," he said.

The EPA understands the community’s desire to redevelop, Walters said.

Avtex was forced to close in November 1969 because of pollution violations. It flied for bankruptcy in February 1990.

About 40 people attended the meeting at the Warren County Courthouse.

"It's the same old crap we heard a year ago," said Paul R. Hockman a member of the local Industrial Development Authority. "I don't see anything different. If they have a meeting a year from now, it'll be the same thing."

The agency is now mobilizing to start investigating the location and extent of contamination, said Bonnie Guy Gross, remedial project manager for the site.

The investigation will start this week. Contractors for the EPA and FMC will be drilling monitoring wells, taking soil borings and surface soil samples, sampling surface water, sediment, aquatic life, solid waste such as material from fly ash piles and fill areas, liquid waste, air and drinking water wells. The plant's estimated 13 miles of underground sewers also will be examined, Ms. Gross said.

Once data is gathered, the risks to health and the environment will be assessed and decisions will be made about how best to clean it up.

"I do recognize the process is frustrating," Ms. Gross said. "EPA as a whole recognizes that it is frustrating."

Ms. Gross said she received a list of priority reuse sites from the Industrial Redevelopment Committee, a group formed to spur the cleanup of the site, about two weeks ago, but hasn't had time to respond. She and other agency officials will meet with FMC representatives to discuss the proposal to make sure that it won't affect ongoing work at the site, she said.

So far, Ms. Gross said, about $17 million has been spent cleaning up the site.