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Article date:
Mid April 2008
Avtex Superfund
stakeholders unite on site plans
Consistency on allowed uses
sought for commercial development By Roger
Bianchini “My
understanding is this will be about as easy to change as an Act
of Congress — so get it right the first time.”— that was the
advice of Valley Conservation Council Executive Director John
Eckman on stakeholder efforts to alter potential future uses at
a portion of the 467-acre Avtex Superfund site. Eckman’s
advice came as discussion of the current situation, past
experiences and future opportunities neared a close at an April
2nd stakeholders meeting hosted by the Front Royal –
Warren County Economic Development Authority.
The setting in Wayside theatre’s Curtain Call Café in the
At stake is
a unified, achievable and sensible plan for economic development
and marketing of the 160-acre re-christened
“There
seems to be a specific prohibition on boat ramps,” Lord Fairfax
Soil & Water Conservation District’s Lyle Schertz replied,
citing an earlier letter from the Environmental Protection
Agency’s
“Maybe in
three or four years, not in 35 to 45 days,” Lauck Walton told
Graham of the gap in the space-time continuum between the town’s
boat landing schedule and timeframes associated with moving
federal behemoths out of their collective bureaucratic lethargy.
Time for a change “Now is the
time of revisit the covenants on uses to allow the property to
be successfully marketed,” Mitchell told stakeholders,” while
assuring the continued protection and health of the public.
But there
is common ground in seeking a successful resolution, Mitchell
pointed out. “The
EPA wants to tell the world that Superfund sites work – that
they are not just places to put fences around and abandon.”
Head scratchers That said,
Mitchell pointed out that current Covenant guidelines included
many what he termed “head scratchers”.
Among those are prohibitions on banks (perhaps on dirty
money only?), retail, restaurants, gyms, mini-storage; with
allowances for the manufacture of transformers, commercial
nurseries and garden centers and the manufacture of baby food
for distribution nationwide. With
concerns about the site’s toxic cleanup at the forefront of the
entire Superfund process the methodology of the above guidelines
defies logic. It was
pointed out the Covenants outlining uses and prohibitions dated
to 1999 and were made in somewhat of a vacuum of information and
cohesive direction. Mitchell
presented a draft of a Mixed Use Ordinance created specifically
for the Royal Phoenix site termed a “Mixed Commercial Campus
District.” The
designation would allow uses such as non-dorm colleges, adult
instructional facilities, theaters, cultural centers,
restaurants, research and development, hotel and conference
centers, professional and general offices, low to medium
intensity retail, health and fitness clubs, recreational and
other specified uses viewed as non toxic and low risk by the
stakeholders. Members of
one stakeholder groups like the LFS&W Conservation District have
pointed out they don’t want to put roadblocks up to economic
development but must carefully balance liability issues in
moving forward. “There are
larger forces at hand here than us that have to sign off on
these things, VCC’s Eckman said after the meeting.
“We appreciate the spirit of what the EDA and the town
want to try and accomplish with this project.
But we are constrained by the details of the agreement
that was drafted years ago and we have to honor that draft.
As I said, the devil is in the details and if that
agreement gets changed we’ll have to be bound by any changes –
but for now that’s what we have to go by.
Our organization supports better models for development
in towns up and down the valley and we love the idea of this
kind of mixed use of public property.
But this property is very unique, it has it’s own
constraints. And
anything that’s done here has to be done within the context of
those constraints.”
Common ground? Mitchell
later commented on the process and motive of those involved. “The EDA
does have a mandate from the EPA, from the bankruptcy trustee
and FMC to redevelop the portion of the site that is being
cleaned up by FMC because the proceeds of it’s sale is to be
used to repay, to a certain extent anyway, the EPA and FMC for
their costs of actually doing the remediation work.
So, there is an economic incentive in putting things back
to usable status, “Mitchell explained of an eventual bottom
line. “The question
we’re addressing today and have been addressing is what
development is appropriate for this site. “Now one
thing that we think is key here is that in 1999 when these
agreements were entered into, nobody knew what was in this
ground. They knew it
had been an industrial site, they knew it had been a factory,
that it had used plastics and all kinds of polymers, acids, all
sorts of compounds.
And nobody knew enough if those were actually in the ground or
whether they had been contained within the sewer pipes that were
onsite.” Mitchell
referenced Torrence’s revelation that out of 95, 500 cubic yard
stockpiles of dirt cleared from down to 15 feet during
excavation of the sites sewer system only one was found to have
any contamination.
And Torrence pointed out that was of higher groundwater
protection standards, than of direct soil contaminants. “As you see
today there are 95 huge piles of dirt on the property and they
have found impacted material in only one of those 95.
FMC will be certifying to EPA later on this year or early
next year that his property has been cleaned to a depth of at
least 10 feet and meets any and all of the categorical standards
of EPA. And with in
mind the site is clean and is perhaps even cleaner than Main
Street downtown, we will be asking the EPA why it cannot be used
for some of the uses that we are proposing.
For example, why would the EPA allow day care and a
Gerber Food manufacturing plant next door to a Carolina
Transformer –type polluter that has a Superfund site in North
Carolina because of the oils and PCBs that come off of
transformers? – Yet if you follow the existing covenants and
restrictions that’s exactly what could happen on this site. “So what we
want to consider and have the EPA consider is to have an
attractive mixed use of commercial and industrial type of
development which the covenants originally envisioned to begin
with that would allow… some things that would not re-contaminate
or repollute the land,
that would help the economy, that would create jobs, that
would show the world that a Superfund site is something that can
be cleaned, remediated and redeveloped—and show that the EPA is
a success in the programs they maintain.” Mitchell is
confident federal approval of altered covenants on site
development will be attained.
A March 25 e-mail from Gross to EDA Interim Executive
Director Mike South said she would work with DOJ to explore the
options presented in the wake of the stakeholders meeting on
modification of site guidelines. |
devoted to what
is and isn’t currently allowed and how that should change.
“FMC can
now go to EPA and say ‘nine years ago we thought this, now we
know what is there (on site to a depth of 10 to 20 feet)…If we
can agree on uses and changes that need to be made today, we can
submit a letter to EPA saying, “Mother may we?” Mitchell joked –
sort of.