The Northern Virginia Daily July 10, 1999 Officials: Avtex matter is settled By Diane Hartson Warren County will be able to take over portions of the Avtex Fibers Superfund site for redevelopment by December and cleanup of the site will be completed in seven years, officials said Friday in announcing a multimillion-dollar cleanup agreement involving a former owner of the rayon plant. The FMC Corp. will have to pay $63 million for the cleanup and $1 million toward demolition of the remaining buildings at the site, according to a consent decree that also calls for the county to get $11 million in grants to help pay for tearing down buildings. Although the decree calls for FMC to pay $63 million, under the provisions of a 1995 settlement, the U.S. Department of Commerce, Department of Defense and NASA will reimburse FMC a third of any money spent at the site. Officials from the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Quality hailed the decree. "This is really a great day for Front Royal," said Wayne W. Walters, senior assistant regional counsel for the EPA. "We’re very pleased to announce we’ve been able to settle this matter. In the end you’re going to have a property that will add value to the community." The EPA has spent $44 million so far to clean up the plant, while FMC has spent $18 million. With the $63 million FMC must still spend, plus the $12 million for tearing down buildings, the total cost of the cleanup will be $137 million, officials said. The decree also calls for FMC to reimburse the EPA more than $9 million for it’s costs within 30 days of the effective date of the decree, plus $500,000 a year to the EPA and $100,000 a year to the state Department of Environmental Quality until the cleanup is completed. FMC must then pay the EPA $50,000 a year and the state department $10,000 a year. FMC will take over the cleanup, under the EPA’s oversight, and also will oversee destruction of the remaining buildings, the decree says. The EPA has torn down about 17 acres of contaminated buildings at the former plant. Several buildings remain, but, under a plan for the site’s reuse created for the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority, all but one of those structures is to be demolished. "If the town, county or EDA seek to purchase the site for industrial, commercial and recreational development, EPA will use its best efforts to negotiate with the localities a prospective purchaser agreement which terms shall include the placement of land use restrictions on the purchased property," the decree says. "The decree also sets spending caps on the remaining cleanup activities. If costs exceed those amounts, it provides for informal negotiations between FMC and the EPA, as well as court action if negotiations fail. The caps are: $17.5 million for the removal of hazardous materials basins on the western portion of the site; $13 million to clean up several viscose basins, ground and surface water; $7.8 million for other viscose basins, installation of a landfill to hold nontoxic rubble, closing of the waste water treatment plant and cleaning soils; and $2.7 million for sewer cleanup. The decree also requires FMC to continue to provide alternative sources of water for residents of the Rivermont Acres subdivision. Walters said the decree will smooth the way for transfer of cleaned portions to the localities for development of the site. The county plans to acquire sections as they are declared clean and have the Economic Development Authority oversee their development as a business park and nature preserve. Plans call for commercial, light industrial and hotel-conference center uses on the 200 acres east of the railroad tracks that bisect the site and for a nature preserve and recreational uses on the 240 acres west of the tracks. Walters said paperwork will be filed in federal court by August to restrict reuse of the site "for all time" to the provisions of the reuse plan. By December, he said, a bankruptcy agreement requiring that the site be leased to the county for $1 a year until the county can take legal ownership will be in place. Ownership will be transferred under a prospective purchaser agreement in which the Justice Department will agree to lift any liability against the county for past pollution that may be discovered, he said. Walters said that agreement should be ready soon. David Johnson, deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said that " in seven years it [site] will be back in total reuse." American Viscose opened the rayon plant in 1940 and sold it to FMC Corp. in 1963. The plant was sold to Avtex Fibers in 1976. The plant was added to the federal Superfund list in 1986 and closed it’s doors in 1989, 10 days after the EPA ordered Avtex to clean up the site and one day after the state revoked its pollutant discharge permit. Avtex shortly afterward declared bankruptcy. Three federal agencies, the Defense and Commerce departments and NASA, lent the company money in the 1980s to keep the plant running because it produced a rayon crucial to the space shuttle, Walters said. That action led to a lawsuit by FMC and a settlement calling for those federal agencies to reimburse the company for a third of any money it spends at the site Officials said Friday that EPA faced a catastrophic situation when the plant closed because the facility wasn’t properly shut down. Pipes and vats full of toxic chemicals were found throughout the site. Most of the chemicals have been removed and although state tests have shown PCBs in the Shenandoah River at other sites, 1997 tests performed showed no PCBs at the site, officials said. A ban dating back to 1989 on eating fish caught in certain sections of the river remains in place. The Superfund law requires that any past owner share in the cost of cleaning up a contaminated site. That is why FMC has been ordered to share in the Avtex cleanup costs. The decree calls for FMC, which is among the parties seeking payment in the Avtex bankruptcy, to have a "superpriority priming lien in the amount of $2 million" in the bankruptcy. Although the decree was filed in federal court in Roanoke Friday morning, it calls for a 30-day public comment period and final action by a judge before it takes effect. In 1995, Virginia sued the federal government, seeking reimbursement for state money spent in the cleanup and for the EPA to be ordered to speed up remediation of the former plant. The lawsuit was settled and the state received more than $1 million in reimbursement. State Secretary of Natural Resources John Paul Woodley, who was then assistant attorney general, said Friday in a telephone interview that he didn’t know whether the state’s lawsuit had resulted in faster action at the plant. "It may very well have, though, in the sense of kind of clearing some of the underbrush and getting the parties focused to move forward," he said. "It certainly was our intention to help things along." Woodley said the decree is "one that will mean really good things for Front Royal in the future. This day, a liability for the community begins to turn into an asset." Timeline Important dates in the history of the Avtex Superfund site:
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