June 23, 1993

No redevelopment of the contaminated 440-acre Avtex Fibers site can occur until bankruptcy proceedings allow clear title of the property to go to a new owner, an Environmental Protection Agency attorney said at a public meeting in Front Royal last Wednesday.

"In the Avtex situation, because the company that owns the property ... has been in federal bankruptcy for 3-1/2 years, EPA does not have control of the property," Wayne Walters, an attorney in EPA’s Region III headquarters in Philadelphia, reported.

Insurance claims, settlement of Avtex’s debts, and federal and state claims involving continuing cleanup of the former rayon plant must first be decided by the federal bankruptcy court, Walters said.

"So this is not a normal EPA Superfund site where EPA would deal with the owner of the property... and figure out what could be done with the property," he said.

Referring to local community leaders and members of the Industrial Redevelopment Committee who have been pushing for faster clean-up at Avetx Walters said, " We want to put the onus on those people who really want to make this thing work."

Front Royal Mayor Stanley W. Brooks Jr. called the clean-up process "too cumbersome" and urged EPA to find ways to get things moving.

"Three years is just unacceptable," Brooks said. "We need to find ways to streamline the process."

Bonnie Guy Gross, EPA’s remedial project manager for the Avtex site, said the federal agency had already spent $17 million to remove contaminated materials and soil from the area.

The list included: carbon disulfide, 370 tons; sulfuric acid (96 percent), 1,500 tons; sulfuric acid (15 percent) 215,000 tons; chlorine gas, 16 tons; dimethylamine, 17,600 tons; carbon disulfide water, 610,000 gallons; carbon disulfide sludges, 40,000 gallons; PCB-contaminated soils, 8,000 cubic yards; acid-reclaim chemical debris, 450 tons.

"This is only the short list," Ms. Gross said.

"Where did the $17 million go?" asked Paul Hockman of Paul’s Maytag & RCA Store, a member of the Industrial Development Authority.

" It was very expensive to deal with the chemicals on that site,"responded Kim Hummel, chief of EPA’s Virginia-West Virginia Superfund section.

EPA’s next major investigation of the location and extent of underground contamination first will center on Avtex’s 13 miles of sewer lines, Gross said.

The underground sewers for more than 40 years and were "carrying acids and bases that compromised" the functional effectiveness of the pipes, she said. Sewage and pollutants leaked out into the ground.

EPA will be sending cameras down into the sewers through 200 manhole covers, she said.

Also, over the next few months the federal agency will install more that a dozen new wells and sample water from more than 50 old wells on the site, she said.

"I do realize that this process is frustrating," Ms. Gross said. "EPA as a whole realizes it is frustrating. We are looking at ways to streamline it."

William Barnett, industry chairman of the mayor’s Comprehensive Economic Development Action Committee, urged EPA officials to follow the example of the Pennsylvania state EPA, which has already cleaned up and redeveloped Avtex’s old plant in Meadville, Pa, where 650 new jobs have been created.

Barnett asked EPA how much "benchmarking" was being done with Pennsylvania’s EPA "so everything isn’t redone... you aren’t re-writing the manual."

"Meadville is very encouraging to us," Walters responded. We’re drawing upon their knowledge... We’re interested now in seeing where there is some commonality.

About 60 local residents attended the informational meeting arranged by EPA. The agency’s officials were hit with many questions from local resident about the length of time for the Avtex clean-up.

IRC Chairman Fred Foster said 15 months went by until recently without any EPA presence on the site.

"It (chemical clean-up) is not the kind of activity that you run out and start doing," Walters responded.

"There’s a lot of planning work to be done.... Please give this a chance," the EPA attorney asked.

"Just because someone’s in Philadelphia (at EPA Region III headquarters) doesn’t mean they’re doing nothing," he said.

Local officials attending the meeting included Supervisor Scottie Thomson, vice chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors; County administrator J. Ronald George; Kimberley Fogle, Front Royal’s planning director; Randy Hodgson, county planning director, and Brian Shull, executive director of the IDA.

Also attending were David Whitestone, field representative for U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, 10^th District Republican, and Wendell Dick, director of constituent services for State Sen. Russ Potts.