Article date: October 21, 2000

Heavener says no one knows what site could reveal without more-detailed study

Richard M. "Rick" Novak

chairman, Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority

By Ashley May

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority will ask FMC Corp., a former owner of the Avtex Superfund site and the major private party responsible for its cleanup, to fund the second phase of an archaeological study on a 12-acre site near the plant’s former administration building.

Evidence that American Indians once occupied the site was uncovered in the first phase of the study, which was conducted in August by Parsons Engineering Science of Fairfax. The archaeological team found flakes of stone, pieces of ceramic and fire-cracked rocks in two places.

The discovery determined that there was evidence of a possible site, but a phase two study will be required to establish how significant the find is and how it affects the redevelopment of the property, EDA Executive Director Stephen A. Heavener said at Friday’s monthly board of directors meeting.

Because the land cannot be disturbed further until a more detailed study is undertaken, Heavener recommended the board ask FMC Corp. to pay for active archaeological dig phase.

"A phase two study needs to be done," Heavener told the board. FMC has been cooperative with the EDA before and funded the phase one study, he said.

Right now, no one knows exactly what the site could reveal until the more-detailed study is done, he said.

"The box has been opened, but it hasn’t been opened enough to look inside," he said.

FMC had plans to use topsoil from the archaeological study area, which is in the front of the property with the administrative buildings, to fill in basin areas near the river as they are cleaned up as part of the federal Superfund site’s remediation effort.

Board members agreed that the unexpected find could be a positive force in the effort to eventually market the 500-acre property as a 240-acre Shenandoah River Conservancy park, a 25-acre soccer complex, a 70-acre passive recreation park on the west bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, and a 165-acre "green" business park.

They also agreed that FMC should be asked to fund the active archaeological dig, or phase two of the analysis.

"My first reaction is that if FMC opened the box, I’d like to see them throw it open the rest of the way," board Chairman Richard M. "Rick" Novak said.

Board member William M. Biggs cast the only vote against the request, saying that he would like to see it phrased as a request for some help with funding the study, not a request for the full cost. He said he was concerned with maintaining the relationship between the EDA and FMC.

Heavener said he didn’t know how much a phase two study would cost.

The Avtex site is the home of a former rayon manufacturing facility, which was first operated by the American Viscose Co. from 1940 to 1963, and then by FMC Corp. from 1963 to 1976. Avtex Fibers operated from 1976 to 1989, when the plant was shut down for financial, environmental and safety reasons.

Because of pollution from plant operations, the Avtex site was designated a federal Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1986.

Over 100 acres of waste impoundments or basins are located in the conservancy park plan area, where sulfate sludge, fly ash and viscose have leached into soil and ground water.

In August, the phase one study revealed artifacts, but little information about the history of the site.

Cindy Auman, an archaeologist for Parsons Engineering Science, has said that while not many conclusions could be drawn about the artifacts or the people who left them, the site is still considered a "good, respectable site."

Artifacts were found to be scattered widely, but indicated two clear sites divided by a wetland area, on about 12 of the 37 acres studied, Auman said.

On the larger site to the north, Auman said that archaeologists have found chips of rock called lithics, which are left when stone tools are made. Also on that site were stones that have been cracked by fire, a sign that campfire hearths may have been built there, she said.

On the northern site are bits of ceramic, which show a somewhat more-recent occupation than the smaller site to the south, she said. Ceramics a newer technology than stone-tool making, are not present on the southern site, she said, but the stone chips and fire-cracked rocks were found there, she said.

Neither site yielded actual tools, but a broken stone point found on the southern site looks as if it might be a "biface" broad spear point, Auman said. Because it was incomplete and broken, there is no way to determine exactly what it is or when it was tooled, she said.

Without a known tool pattern, it is hard to determine who occupied the site, how long ago or for how long, she said.

"It’s interesting from every standpoint, but we don’t really know very much about it," Auman said.