July 09, 1999

After years of squabbling, an agreement has been reached to clean up the former Avtex Fibers manufacturing plant in Front Royal, Virginia's biggest private Superfund toxic waste site.

Under the settlement with the Justice Department, the plant's former owner, FMC Corp., has agreed to rid the 440-acre site of toxic chemicals within seven years at an estimated cost of $63 million, an administration official said.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said FMC Corp., as part of the settlement to be submitted to the court, commits to completing the Avtex site's cleanup.

"This is very good news. Hopefully, all legal issues are now resolved and the cleanup at Avtex can be accelerated," said Mark Miner, a spokesman for Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.

FMC Corp., a Chicago-based chemical and manufacturing company that sold the Virginia plant in 1976, has spent about $20 million and the Environmental Protection Agency another $27 million on site cleanup.

Controversy has surrounded the Avtex Fibers plant for years. It is Virginia's No. 1 privately owned Superfund site and one of the state's most controversial and visible environmental problems.

FMC Corp. owned the plant from 1963 to 1976 when it was sold to Avtex Fibers Inc.. That company declared bankruptcy in 1989 after state officials revoked Avtex's water permit, citing more than 2,000 violations for polluting the nearby Shenandoah River.

Tom Kline, a spokesman for FMC Corp., declined comment on the settlement, but said company officials would have a statement today.

In 1997, Gilmore, then attorney general, filed suit against the federal government, demanding that it pay all of the cleanup costs. Under Superfund regulations, the state must pay 10 percent of the cleanup costs and all maintenance and monitoring costs.

State Officials, however, charged in the suit that federal agencies knew that envi-ronmental laws were being violated in the late 1980s when Avtex was making fabric critical to the space shuttle program, and asked that the $1 million to $1.5 million that Virginia had spent on the cleanup be refunded.

The lawsuit was later settled, with the federal government agreeing to take responsibility for any further costs.

Located in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the plant once employed more than 3,000 workers. Originally owned by the American Viscose Corp., it opened in the 1930s and during World War II was a major supplier of rayon for tires.

Over the years, a smorgasbord of toxic chemicals spewed from the plant's 365-foot smokestack onto nearby buildings and the open countryside that surrounded the plant. The red brick smokestack was demolished in 1997 as part of the cleanup.

According to state and federal officials, the 440-acre area is contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos, PCBs, mercury, lead, and carbon disulfides, which cause nerve damage, and other ailments. Contaminated lagoons and sludge pools dot the area.

More than 8,000 tons of contaminated soil, 2,000 tons of chemicals, 240,000 gallons of flammable chemicals and acids, and 3,000 bags of asbestos have been removed from the site.

Once the cleanup is complete, local and State officials hope to reopen the site to manufacturing and other uses.

"We certainly hope that it will clear the decks for redeveloping the site and . . . put the site to productive use for the people of Front Royal," said Secretary of Natural Resources John Paul Woodley.

James L. McManaway, chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, said the site will be deeded to the county for businesses and an industrial campus. A portion of the site will be turned into a golf course.

"If you look at that Avtex area in 10 years, you won't even realize it used to be Avtex," he said.