The Warren Sentinel

Article date: March 31, 2005

 As ARAC departs, realization of a vision looms

 By Roger Bianchini

The Avtex Redevelopment Advisory Committee will officially announce its dissolution at an April 5 evening meeting with the Avtex Multi-Stakeholders Group at the Warren County Government Center.

And while ARAC will cease to exist, out of its ashes the impetus toward a rebirth of a 240 acre portion of the sprawling 467 acres Superfund site will continue.

That portion is slated to become a conservancy park for passive recreational uses that will span the property’s length along the Shenandoah River.

“Finally we have moved ahead to the next phase of the project where the stakeholders vision for the property is now becoming a reality.  This gives the stakeholders ownership in the future reuse of the site,” Sue Reiner said last week.

Active in the conservancy park and site’s historical record preservation process from its start in 1999, Reiner pointed out that Avtex was selected by the project’s federal overseer, the Environmental Protection Agency, to be a pilot project to demonstrate the way local government can better participate with federal and state governments in the process of returning Superfund sites to productive uses.

Due to pollution associated with the plant’s operation it was designated a federal Superfund site in 1986 during the stewardship of the plant’s third owner, Avtex Fibers, which purchased the plant in 1976 from FMC Inc. Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry ordered the plant closed in 1989 due to continued state water control board violations polluting the adjacent Shenandoah River.

A decade later Avtex was selected from 10 candidate sites EPA identified as best suited to involve not only local government, but also community stakeholders in a proactive approach to redevelopment.  Stakeholders are identified as community members, local planners and elected officials.

Noting the effort to involve a wide range of stakeholders in a series of interactive, developmental work sessions, Reiner joked that Avtex redevelopment had instituted the “charrette” process a good five years before the term came into vogue during the recent Happy Creek growth study.  A charrette is a series of intensive interactive work sessions involving a wide range of community participants.

“It was back in 1999 when we began working with local residents to identify and integrate long-term community needs into the comprehensive plans for the site.  The conservancy park is a good example of the success of that effort where we worked extensively with stakeholders to develop a master plan for the park,” Reiner said.

That initial series of community workshops were held between October 1999 and January 2000 shortly after FMC had taken over remediation work at the site.  EPA led remediation culminated with the demolition of 30 acres of plant buildings in 1998.  Under a consent decree between EPA and FMC – the lone survivor of the plant’s three owners – FMC has conducted remediation site work since October 1999.  FMC’s cleanup has included closure and decontamination work at 11 viscose, five sulfate and two fly ash basins, as well as an industrial landfill between the railroad tracks and the river.

Over those existing and soon to be completed closures lies much of the 240 acre conservancy park that ARAC and the Multi-Stakeholders Group have spearheaded plans for.

Reiner points out that among stakeholder suggestions incorporated into conservancy park plans were some made during workshops involving students at Warren County High, Junior High and Middle Schools.  And while only the students passive use suggestions were eventually adopted, many of their active recreational use ideas were incorporated into other county parks, including the 32-acre SoccerPlex site at the southeast corner of the Avtex property.

The success of the integrated approach at Avtex led not only to the site being named a pilot project in EPA’s Superfund Redevelopment Initiative, but also to the availability of grants for work at the site.

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority, which has taken the point for local government’s involvement in Avtex redevelopment is not poised to move work at both the conservancy park and the 160 acre business park from a focus on remediation to redevelopment.

Seed money has been committed by the county in the amount of $13,200 for phase one of conservancy park redevelopment and on Monday the town, approved $6,040 to be added to that phase one seed money requested by the EDA.

So, while ARAC will soon be no more, the community vision it helped set into motion is closer to realization than ever before, Reiner said.