May 05, 1998

The most contaminated portion of the Avtex Fibers Superfund site in Front Royal may seem to be one of the most unlikely sites for a nature preserve and recreation area.

But local officials said that, at least for now, that would probably be the best use for a 230 acre section of the Avtex site.

A study by the consulting firm of north American Realty Advisory Services recommends a 15 year, $5 million plan to reclaim the deteriorating and toxic Avtex site. The plant calls for preparing 183 acres in the eastern half of the site for mixed development with a hotel-conference center, office complex, light industrial park and commercial uses and for making most of the 240 acres west of the railroad tracks that divide the site into a nature preserve and recreation area.

"Passive recreational uses and river access, walking-biking trails and interpretive nature and habitat center" are possible uses listed in the study.

"That side of the railroad tracks is much more long term," Economic Development Authority Director Stephen A. Heavener said. "Because we didn’t know if and when the left side of the tracks would be available for anything, we all agreed the left (west) side should remain passive."

That section contains some of the worst pollution at the former rayon plant. There are basins filled with sulfite and fly ash, even a mountain where fly ash was dumped years ago.

After a decade in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency and a bankruptcy trustee, and despite its toxicity, the land in that section looks like a nature preserve, herons and other wild birds fly overhead and deer peek from wooded hillsides.

A study of the effects of the pollution on wildlife hasn’t been completed, but no mutant animals or birds have been seen there, EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Gross said. Nothing has been found that would harm deer, although the pollution’s possible effects on migratory birds are being studied, she said.

Nothing that would prevent the section from being used as a nature preserve has been found she said. That section also contains a considerable mount of flood plain and flood way.

Knowing that those acres probably wouldn’t be suitable for development for at least a few decades, Heavener said local officials told North American Realty that creating river access should be a priority in its study.

That would fit a long-range parks and recreation plan the town drafted several years age. Which calls for new river access, parks and greenways without specifying where.

" There is already public access (to the river) on Luray Avenue at the very edge of the southern end of the Avtex property," Town Manager, M. Lyle Lacey III said.

But the town is getting out of the parks and recreation business as Warren County takes over responsibility for those programs, and county officials haven’t made any plans for park and recreation development, Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Matthew A. Tederick said.

Town officials must "communicate their vision," he said. "We have to figure how that (Avtex recreation proposal) fits with our comprehensive plan, as well as what money we would have available for recreation."

Heavener said creating a park on the west side would fit in well with the study’s proposal for developing the other side.

The study urges creation of a "park like setting" for the eastern side and development standards for it.

It even calls for giving the site a better reputation by renaming the developed side "skyline business park, Shenandoah business and commerce park or riverfront business park."

The study’s plan "incorporates sound environmental decisions in design, management and construction of the project," the study says. "Planning is supported by discussions with the national and international chapter of the Audubon Society, the Signature Program of the Audubon International Center for Sustainable Resource Management and the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program, all of which have been most encouraging of our ideas for the site."