THE WARREN SENTINEL

Article date: October 11, 2001

 

Avtex cleanup moving along

 

Next stakeholders meeting is Oct. 18

By: Jay North

The people of Front Royal are being given 440 acres to use as they see fit.  That’s what Doug Bement , site manager at the Avtex Superfund complex, told the Front Royal Rotarians at their October meeting last Friday.

The Superfund site has come a long way since the initial clean-ups began.  Fly ash and zinc sulfate sludge basins are currently being dredged and compiled into singular basins with the now empty basins set to be returned to their natural state.  Both have been determined safe for a cap and cover solution, as the Environmental Protection Agency has deemed fly ash and zinc sulfate sludge to be environmentally friendly to animals and humans.  The fly ash, piled into a large mount in one area that resembles the surrounding valley topography, is actually covered in trees and brush thriving on the carbon rich matter.  The smoke stack and water tower that had become such a fixture of the Front Royal skyline, have both been effectively demolished.  Eventually all but the old administration building will be destroyed.

The largest problem, Bement said, rests in the remaining viscose.  FMC Corporation is spending upwards of $2 million to study the leftover viscose basins.  Rainwater sinking down through the viscose has found a hole in the bedrock at the bottom of one of the basins, creating a plume of pollution extending west from the site, across the river.  The viscose also presents another immediate problem.  Many citizens are well aware that Avtex has been lending a sulfurous smell to the air on fall mornings, or most anytime fog is present, for years.  The smell comes from sulfates in the viscose and is a natural reaction to rain water and occurring oxidation.

FMC is currently examining its options to decide how best to plug up the hole at the bottom of the basin.  There are many solutions to the problem of waste viscose.  None of them are easy and each has its drawbacks.  Many suggest ridding Front Royal of its environmental problem by barreling the viscose and shipping it off somewhere else.  But EPA officials say that then, Front Royal’s problem becomes someone else’s.  No matter where the pollution goes, it will still be pollution in someone’s environment.  Bement says that with further research and study, an answer will be presented that works best for the environment and the people.

“There’s nothing that we aren’t considering right now.  Everything is on the table,” said Bement.

The land where buildings currently dominate could eventually house a business park.  The western most portion of the site that butts up against the Shenandoah River is where the storage basins are located.  That land will be set up as grassland and natural habitat to encourage wildlife to return to the area.  Heron can already be spotted perched atop mounds of earth where zinc sludge fields once lay.  Bement says the Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal is also contributing studies and information about the eco-system of the area.