September 28, 1999

With the unanimous approval of the Front Royal Town Council and Warren County Board of Supervisors, the Avtex Fibers land sale contract was signed, sealed and--almost--delivered Monday night.

Moments after the two governing bodies separately approved the contract transferring the Superfund site to the Economic Development Authority, authority Director Stephen A. Heavener began gathering signatures so the half-inch-thick document could be rushed by overnight mail to the next signatories.

The pact must be in the hands of a federal bankruptcy court judge by Friday.

County and town officials quickly signed the contract and accompanying legal agreements, which were propped up against a radiator in a Town Hall hallway.

Officials were restrained in their comments about the contract, which transfers nearly 600 acres at the Avtex Superfund site to the authority.

"It’s a step," Heavener said. "I’ll be happier when the bankruptcy court judge says, ‘Done.’"

"After eight or nine years of working on this project, now we’re getting down to the work and there’s a lot of work to be done," authority member William P. ‘Bill’ Barnett said. "This is a landmark day for this project. We’re actually taking action. It’s exciting and it’s enormously challenging."

The contract will place the entire Avtex site, including the 77-acre former Allied Chemical plant and about 68 acres on the west side of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, in the authority’s hands.

Nearly 200 acres of the site will become a business park with commercial and light industrial businesses, offices and a hotel-conference center over the next 15 years. The other half of the site, where pollution-filled lagoons await cleanup, will become a nature preserve and recreation area.

The county will pay $60,000 for the land at the closing, which is expected by the end of the year. The town and county will forgive about $1.6 million in unpaid taxes on the property in exchange for the land.

The contract also calls for payments to FMC Corp., a former Avtex site owner that will pay $63 million in cleanup costs over the next few years.

Officials said Monday that the contract may not be the best possible deal, but is the only way to get the land back into use.

"Warren County and Front Royal’s best interests are not to just keep a shell of a building there and the land unused," Supervisor Matthew L. Tederick said. "Is this the perfect agreement? No. But I don’t see that we have any choice other that to move forward."

Heavener said if the town and county rejected the contract, the land would sit idle.

"FMC intends to proceed with the consent order (under which it is overseeing and paying for remaining cleanup) to clean up the Superfund site, and that’s all they intend to do," he said.

"It is going to cost $15 (million)to $20 million to put the property in developable condition above and beyond what (FMC) is legally required to do," County Attorney Douglas W. Napier said.

Napier said selling the land for development after it is cleared and infrastructure build will yield about $6 million above those costs.

"They aren’t going to spend $15 (million) to $20 million to make $6 million back," he said. "The property would not be developed."

Heavener said the authority hopes to get grants to pay for most of the demolition of the remaining buildings and to build roads and install utility lines.

Sen. John R. Warner has pushed through authorization for $17 million in federal money and will seek appropriation of those funds.

The bankruptcy judge is expected to approve the plan for shifting ownership to the authority on Nov. 23.

Heavener said the closing could take place as soon as 10 days after that.

The site, which was home to a former rayon plant that opened in 1940 as American Viscose, was later owned by FMC and then Avtex. The plant was declared a federal Superfund site in 1986 and was voluntarily closed in 1989 after being cited for more that 2,000 violations of environmental laws.

Avtex declared bankruptcy shortly after closing the plant.

Heavener said the Avtex case has been in federal bankruptcy court for 10 years, the longest of any case in that eastern Pennsylvania federal court.