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.