Star City Seeks Brownfields Site
Former location of Quality Glass nearly cleaned up
Morgantown Dominion Post
8 May 2011
By Tracy Eddy
Star City officials are expected to formally ask the Monongalia County
Commission for ownership of the former Quality Glass site this week.
But the town doesn’t yet know what it would do with the property —
Treasurer Robert Lloyd said Star City’s plans would depend on any
restrictions the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
place on the property.
The 3-acre site on Van Voorhis Road is in the final stages of the
state’s voluntary remediation program, which cleans up brownfields.
According to the DEP, brown- fields are abandoned or inactive
industrial or commercial properties.
The actual cleanup started in 2009. Soil contaminated with metals and
polyaromatic hydrocarbon (a heavier type of petroleum which can contain
benzene) were removed, and the remaining soil was capped with clay and
covered with more soil.
Trash and other debris were also removed.
Donald Martin, assistant director of the DEP’s Division of Land
Restoration, said the Quality Glass site hasn’t completed the voluntary
remediation program yet — additional paperwork, including a land-use
covenant, needs to be put together and some ground water samples need
to be taken.
The work could be completed later this month, Martin said.
The land-use covenant will go over any restrictions put on the property
to protect the cleanup and remediation work that was done. Martin said
those could include capping the soil, restricting ground water use or
making sure any future use of the site is non-residential.
The specifics of each site’s land-use covenant depends on the site,
Martin said — where it is and what has contaminated it.
Remediation of the Quality Glass site cost about $350,000, Commission
President Asel Kennedy said. The majority of the cost was covered by a
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Cleanup grant, but he
said the county contributed about $47,000 to the project as well.
The former Quality Glass site isn’t in Star City’s municipal limits,
Kennedy said, but is about three or four miles away.
Kennedy said there has been no talk of Star City annexing the property,
and it wouldn’t be necessary — the town can own property outside its
limits.
The county would benefit if Star City took over the Quality Glass site,
he said — the county would no longer have to manage it and the public
would still have access to it.
Currently, the site slopes down to the Monongahela River and has a
gravel lot with about 16 parking spaces, Kennedy said.
The state’s voluntary remediation program started more than 12 years
ago, Martin said. Since then 205 sites, statewide, have applied to be a
part of the program, according to the DEP, and 110 sites have completed
it.