United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Site Remediation
Enforcement
(2273A)
EPA 330-F-97-001
Summer 1997
SEPA Creating Partnerships in Redevelopment
Breathing Life Back Into Brownfields
Site Description: An undeveloped
property in Joplin, Missouri,
located within the Tri-State
Mining Area, an inactive lead and
zinc mining region
Site Size: Approximately 20 acres
near a 7,000+ - acre Superfund
National Priorities List site
Brownfields Tool: Comfort Letter,
July 1996; Prospective Purchaser
Agreement, September 1996
(Morandex Property: Purchased
September 11, 1996, facility
completed April 14,1997
New Facility: 210,000-square-foot
Norandex Inc. vinyl siding and
- building products manufacturing
plant and warehouse
Jobs Created: 50 to 60 short-term
construction jobs and over
90 permanent jobs
Revenues Generated: Approxi-
mately $6 to $7.5 million from
local goods and services;
$175,000 to $200,000 annually in
city and county taxes
EPA Region: 7
State: Missouri
Congressional District: 7
Partners in Redevelopment:
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, U.S. Department of
Justice, City of Joplin, Norandex
Inc., Jasper County Superfund
Site Coalition, Jasper County
Health Department, Jasper
County EPA Superfund Citizens'
Task Force, Missouri Department
of Natural Resources, Missouri
Department of Health,
St. Francois County,,U.S. Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban
Development, Agency for Toxic
Substances an'd Disease Registry,
Joplin Industrial Development "
Authority, Joplin Business and
Industrial Development Corporation
Success in Brief
PPA Paves Way for Norandex
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ), the City of Joplin, Missouri, and Norandex Inc., an Ohio-based manufac-
turer and distributor of vinyl siding and other building materials, signed a
prospective purchaser agreement (PPA) in September of 1996 that was instru-
mental in bringing Norandex's new, 210,000-square-foot manufacturing and
warehouse facility to Joplin. Through the PPA, EPA promised not to sue
Norandex under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or "Superfund") for cleanup of any pre-
existing contamination found on property the company purchased at the Joplin-
Webb City Industrial Park in northeast Joplin. In return for this release from
potential Superfund liability, Norandex contributed $10,000 to the City of Joplin
to operate a lead hazard education program and blood lead testing program for
local children.
The Norandex property is located within the Oronogo-Duenweg Mining Belt,
a former lead and zinc mining area that covers over 7,000 acres of Jasper County,
Missouri. In 1990, areas near the Norandex property were placed on the
Superfund National Priorities List (NPL), EPA's roster of the nation's most
severely contaminated hazardous waste sites, making the area eligible for
cleanup funds from EPA's Hazardous Substance Superfund. NPL listing also
made property owners within the area potentially liable for site cleanup.
Although the Norandex property is not part of the NPL site and no contamina-
tion had been discovered on it, its proximity to an NPL site created a significant
disincentive for potential purchasers. EPAbrownfields tools such as PPAs were
developed to overcome just this kind of obstacle to development.
The Site Today
Norandex Inc. employs over 90 local residents at its vinyl siding and building
materials manufacturing facility, pumping millions of dollars annually into the
local economy, and is moving ahead with plans to expand its research and
development of new compounds and vinyl building products at the Joplin
facility by adding four to six new employees. Cargo Transporters, a trucking
company that services Norandex's plant in Claremont, North Carolina, recently
purchased five acres at the Joplin-Webb City Industrial Park in order to service
the Joplin facility, and a Norandex supplier is scouting the Joplin area as an
alternative location to the current east coast operation.
Norandex Inc.'s 210,000-square-foot facility at the Joplin-Webb City
Industrial Park.
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Creating Partnerships in Redevelopment • Jasper County/Norandex Inc., Joplin, Missouri • Summer 1997
Brownfields Liability Tools
EPA defines brovvnfields as
abandoned, idled, or tinder-used
industrial and commercial facilities
where expansion or redevelopment
is complicated by real or perceived
environmental contamination. The
initial Brownf ields Action Agenda,
announced January 25,1995, outlined
the Agency's plans to encourage and
facilitate the productive development
of such facilities. One of the items on
that agenda was developing ways to
help interested parties realistically
assess the possibility of incurring
liability for performing or reimburs-
ing cleanup work under CERCLA, the
statute that established the Superfund
program. Several of these "liability^
tools" came into play during discus-
sions with Norandex Inc. concerning
its prospective purchase of property
at the Joplin-Webb City Industrial
Park.
Comfort Letters. EPA issues
comfort letters to share its current
state of knowledge about conditions
at a site with interested parties, and to
signify its intent to exercise its
Superfund response and enforcement
authorities based on that knowledge.
Comfort letters are issued for
informational purposes only; they
create no legally enforceable rights
and act neither as waivers of EPA's
CERCLA authorities nor guarantees
of no Superfund response action.
Nonetheless, they have often
provided interested parties enough
certainty to proceed with acquisition
and development plans. This is
especially the case where a site is not
listed on the NPL and EPA has no
information about releases of hazard-
ous materials on the site that would
warrant further investigation. Region 7
issued a comfort letter to Norandex in
July 1996, noting that there were no
waste piles on the site and that the
Agency did not intend to pursue a
ground water treatment remedy. In
light of its experiencewith environ-
mental issues, the potential impacts of
the nearby NPL site, and the fact that
it was contemplating a substantial
investment, however, Norandex was
not willing to go forward unless it
had a legally enforceable agreement.
De Minimis Settlements. EPA
may enter into so-called de minirnis
settlements, one type of which is
made with landowners who had no
knowledge that property was con-
taminated when they acquired it,
provided that they performed "due
diligence" and did not add to the
contamination themselves. These
settlements provide property owners
a covenant not to sue from EPA and
protection against lawsuits by third
parties seeking contribution to the
cost of an Agency-ordered cleanup.
As part of the Brownf ields Action
Agenda, EPA announced that de
minimis settlements were available to
owners of property with aquifers
(water-bearing geologic formations)
that were contaminated through
migration of contaminants from
sources outside the property. Since
subterranean contaminant migration
was of concern to Norandex, and a
de minimis settlement would have
been legally enforceable, the possibil-
ity of entering into one was discussed.
The idea was eventually dropped,
however, as Norandex could not
satisfy the "no knowledge" require-
ment, and in addition, CERCLA limits
de minimis settlement to parties who
already own contaminated property.
Prospective- Purchaser Agreements.
PPAs are used where property is
contaminated, EPA intends to or has
already exercised response or
enforcement authority under
CERCLA, and the prospective
purchaser is fully aware of the
situation. In these circumstances, EPA
will give the prospective purchaser a
covenant not to sue in return for
performance of specified cleanup
work or reimbursement of a fixed
amount of response costs already
incurred by the Agency. As part of
the Brownfields Action Agenda, EPA
had expanded the quid pro quo to
include substantial benefits to the
community in the form of job cre-
ation, property rehabilitation, or
community revitalization. However,
a direct environmental benefit is still
necessary to enter into a PPA This
instrument gave Norandex the
certainty it required to go ahead with
the purchase. There was no cleanup
work to perform on the future plant
site, but contributing to the lead
education remedy for residential and
mine waste yard soils provided the
substantial environmental and
community benefit necessary to
satisfy these requirements.
EPA turned the
prospective
purchaser agreement
from a cleanup tool
into an economic
development tool
— Rob O'Brian, President,
Joplin Area Chamber of
Commerce
Continued from page 3
park lies within a state Enterprise Zone
(EZ) in a mixed-use area located within
the incorporated boundaries of the two
cities and populated by low- and
moderate-wage earners. New businesses
that locate facilities in the EZ .obtain
credits against state taxes for |investing,
creating jobs, and employing |local
residents. In addition, both Joplin and
Webb City offer partial abatement of
property taxes on buildings to compa-
nies whose facilities are located in the
park.
The Joplin Business and Industrial
Development Corporation (JBIDC), a
not-for-profit economic development
organization affiliated with the area
Chamber of Commerce, operates a Spec
Building Program that works in tandem
withJIDA. Under this program, JBIDC
erects shell buildings on its property
holdings, and markets land and
building as a unit through trade
magazines, trade shows, and contacts in
the Missouri Department of Economic
Development, the Chamber of Com-
merce, and the Empire District Electric
Company, a local, investor-owned
utility with its own community eco-
nomic development program. JBIDC
acquired a 15-acre parcel at the park
from JIDA in 1995, erected a 105,000- _
square-foot shell building on it, and
received expressions of interest from
Norandex Inc.
Potential Superfund Liability
Creates Obstacle
Norandex was unaware that Joplin was
in the middle of an NPL site when it first
heard about JBIDC's partially developed
property, but that fact came to light as it
pursued its "due diligence" investiga-
tions. Norandex found the Joplin area
an attractive location for a new plant
because of its rail lines, financial incen-
tives, and proximity to markets in the
southwest, but the NPL status of the
Continued on page 5
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Creating Partnerships in Redevelopment • Jasper County/Norandex Inc., Joplin, Missouri • Summer 1997
Continued from page 4
surrounding area turned into a major
obstacle to the purchase.
This was so even though the JBIDC
parcel had no mining waste piles or lead-
tainted soil on it, and three test holes
that Norandex drilled into the shallow
aquifer tested negative for the heavy
metal contaminants prevalent through-
out Jasper County. Moreover, EPA issued
a comfort letter to Norandex in July 1996
indicating that it did not anticipate
remediating ground water at the site.
But Norandex's parent company, Dallas,
Texas-based Fibreboard Corporation,
had manufactured asbestos-containing
products until the early 1970s, and been
involved in protracted and expensive
litigation with alleged asbestos victims
and insurers as a result. Due to its
experience with asbestos and other
environmental issues, and the potential
impacts of the NPL site on the JBIDC
property, Fibreboard was wary of
Superfund's broad liability net.
Under Superfund's strict, joint,
several, and retroactive standard, EPA
can hold property owners liable to clean
up pre-existing contamination unless one
of a limited number of statutory defenses
is available. Superfund's liability
standard ensures that parties responsible
for contamination will pay to clean it up
if they can be identified and,are
financially viable, but the mere fear of
potential Superfund liability, especially
at a huge site like Oronogo-Duenweg,
can have a negative effect on beneficial
Continued on page 6
Superfund Combats
County-Wide Contamination
City and county health professionals carried
out blood lead screening of local children with
the help of an EPA mobile unit.
Early Studies Expose
Extent of Problem
Ground water sampling conducted by
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in
1976 showed elevated levels of lead,
zinc, and cadmium in surface water
runoff from former mining areas.
Five of 18 private wells in Jasper
County sampled by EPA in 1986
showed excess concentrations of
cadmium, nickel, manganese, lead,
and/or zinc; a preliminary assessment
and site inspection (PA/SI) the
following year showed that the same
metals were entering streams at levels
toxic to aquatic life. As these metals
can cause impaired fetal development,
chronic kidney and cardiovascular
disorders, and central nervous system
damage, especially in children under
the age of seven, EPA added the site to
the NPL in August 1990, making it
eligible for comprehensive cleanup
under the Superfund program.
Superfund Cleanup Process
Gears Up
EPA and potentially responsible
parties (PRPs) began a remedial
investigation/feasibility study
(RI/FS) in 1993 to
gather more detailed
information about
health and environ-
mental problems
associated with the •
mining wastes. The
PRPs identified
private water wells in
the eastern part of the
site that exceeded
health standards for
lead, cadmium, zinc,
and manganese. EPA
ordered them to
provide bottled water
to these homes,
sample additional
private wells, and
begin an FS to select a
permanent water
supply for the area.
This FS is scheduled
for completion in
late 1997.
By January 1996, EPA and the
PRPs had completed RIs for all 11
DAs, and MDOH had completed a
human health risk assessment. EPA is
scheduled to complete an ecological
risk assessment in late 1997. The
PRPs will then begin the FS phase,
which will evaluate alternative
strategies for achieving comprehen-
sive cleanup of mining wastes.
Soil Identified As Major Source of
Lead Exposure
Meanwhile, MDOH had completed an
ATSDR-funded lead and cadmium
exposure study of Jasper County in
1994, concluding that 14 percent of
children under the age of seven in the
study area had blood lead levels
exceeding 10 micrograms per deciliter
(lOng/dl), the level that ATSDR
considers protective of health, and
that the primary cause of these
elevated levels was high concentra-
tions of lead in residential soils.
In response, EPA decided to
prioritize and clean up areas with
elevated levels of soil lead. PRPs
performed sampling at all day care
centers in Jasper County and neigh-
boring Cherokee County, Kansas, and
in all residential areas around histori-
cal smelters and mining areas. They
identified the area around the former
Eagle-Picher smelter in northwest
Joplin as having the highest concen-
trations of soil lead. EPA announced a
"time-critical" action to remove and
replace soil at day care centers where
soil contained more than 500 parts per
million (ppm) lead and at residential
yards where soil exceeded 2,500 ppm
or a child in the home had a blood
lead level greater than 15 ag/dl.
By January 1996, residential soil
removal and replacement was
complete at six day care centers and
304 homes in the former smelter area.
In August 1996, EPAissued a record
of decision (ROD) describing the
remedy selected for residential yard
and mine waste yard soils. Over the
next five years, the Agency will
excavate and replace all soil exceeding
800 ppm lead at over 2,500 residences
in the smelter area not addressed as
Continued, See Superfund page 6
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Creating Partnerships in Redevelopment • Jasper County/Norandex Inc., Joplin, Missouri • Summer 1997
Supcrfwid continued from page 5
part of the time-critical removal
action and at homes on or near
mining waste piles. The ROD also
calls for EPA to fund the Jasper
County Health Department's child
blood lead screening and health
education program, and to help
state and local authorities establish
institutional controls (ICs) to guide
future residential development in
lead-contaminated areas. ICs could
include such measures as zoning
restrictions, special building
permits, or health ordinances.
Continued from page 5
economic activity.
Fibreboard was aware that the
fractured subsurface geology of the area
could create pockets of contaminated
ground water that test holes might not
locate. They also worried that contami-
nated ground water could migrate onto
the JBIDC parcel from one of the NPL
site's 11 DAs, the nearest of which is
only a quarter-mile away, and that
EPA's cleanup plans could change,
depending on the outcome of an ongoing
ground water feasibility study (see
sidebar p.5). As Norandex attorney Jim
Caulfield puts it, "We didn't want to buy
ourselves into an NPL site."
EPA Brownfields Policy Tailored
for Norandex
In 1989, EPA issued a guidance docu-
ment to its 10 regions on entering into
agreements with prospective purchasers
of contaminated property. The guidance
said that EPA was
prepared to give
covenants not to sue
to purchasers who
conducted specified
cleanup work that
EPA would other-
wise have to
perform, or reim-
bursed EPA a fixed
amount of response
costs already
incurred. By
providing lenders,
developers, and
new owners with
certainty that
Superfund liability
had been foreclosed, these agreements
facilitated the purchase of numerous
contaminated properties for cleanup and
redevelopment.
Experience led EPA to issue revised
PPA guidance in 1995 as part of its
Brownfields Initiative. The new guid-
ance expanded the kinds of "consider-
ation" it would accept in return for a
covenant not to sue. The Agency
announced that it would reduce the
amount of cleanup work or reimburse-
The brownfields strategy
shows the way to solving
some big problems in the
future. We have areas here
that look like deserts, and
no one would have touched
them before
— Earl Carr, Chairman, Jasper
County EPA Superfund Citizens'
Task Force
Piles of fine-grained gravel called
found throughout Jasper County.
"chat" and other mining wastes are
ment required if the purchaser provided
equivalent community benefits. The
benefits had to be substantial, i.e., job
creation, productive use of abandoned
property, or revitalization of blighted
areas, and they could only replace part
of the purchaser's cleanup obligation,
but nevertheless the
new policy radically
expanded
opportunitiestouseTPAs.
After exploring
other brownfields
tools that proved
unsatisfactory
(see sidebar p.4),
Region 7 agreed to an
innovative applica-
tion of the new PPA
guidance .to clear the
way for the Norandex
purchase; Because
there was no known
contamination on the
JBIDC property that
Norandex could clean up or reimburse
EPA for cleaning up. Norandex agreed to
contribute $10,000 to the City of Joplin
Health Department's lead education and
exposure screening program, a compo-
nent of the remedy for residential and
mine waste yard soils (see sidebar p.5).
Pursuant to EPA's guidance, [this was
considered the direct environmental
benefit necessary to enter into a PPA
Norandex, the City of Joplin, EPA,
and DOJ finalized a PPA in September
1996. Interior construction began
immediately so the new plant would be
ready for the spring building season.
Norandex expanded the shell building to
twice its original size or 210,000 square
feet, and purchased five additional acres
directly from JIDA to accommodate
warehouse space. Construction was
completed and manufacturing opera-
tions began in April 1997.
Building on the cooperation
established earlier in the Superfund
process, local shareholders and EPA
worked together to make sure the
community reaped the economic benefits
of its economic development initiative.
Norandex spent approximately
$3 million to acquire the property and
expand the shell building, and another
$12 million equipping the new facility.
The seven-month construction phase
created 50 to 60 temporary jobs, and the
manufacturing and warehousing
operations created over 90 permanent
jobs. The plant is expected to inject
$3 million to $3.5 million annually into
the local economy through payroll and
other expenditures, and to pay $175,000
to $200,000 in city and county taxes,
most of which will go to local school
districts.
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Creating Partnerships in Redevelopment«Jasper County/Norandex Inc., Joplin, Missouri • Summer 1997
Norandex Reinforces Lead Education
and Testing Program
In Missouri, exposure to lead and
other heavy metals is not a health
concern confined to former
mining areas. As a result of
airborne dispersal, waste haul-
ing, and the widespread use of
mining debris as construction fill,
contaminants have migrated well
beyond the areas where they
originated. In response, the state
health department established
the Missouri Childhood Lead
Poisoning Prevention Program.
The program's district represen-
tative is an environmental
specialist with the Jasper County
Health Department. He serves
on both the Jasper County
Superfund Site Coalition and the
Jasper County EPA Superfund
Citizens' Task Force, and works
closely with the director of the
City of Joplin Health Depart-
ment, who also serves on the
Citizens' Task Force.
The city and county health
departments carry out the state
program's mandate by cooperat-
ing in an extensive, ATSDR-
funded lead education and blood
lead testing program for chil-
dren. Information on lead-
related health issues is made
available through schools,
community organizations, health
fairs, mailings, a Parents As Teach-
ers program, Lamaze and pre-natal
groups, pediatricians, and local
media coverage. The program
covers the developmental problems
lead can cause, useful precautions,
availability of blood lead tests, and
sources and symptoms of exposure.
The education program has
sought to make "lead conscious-
ness" an integral part of the
community's culture. So far, it has
participated in developing a lead
poisoning awareness curriculum in
cooperation with local school
districts for kindergarten, fifth- and
sixth- grade, and high school
students, a site-specific coloring
book about the dangers of lead,
titled Pb Possum Plays It Safe Around
Lead, and a local Ozark Area Girl
Scout Council mining history and
lead safety mining badge. Other
local officials are working with the
health departments on a residential
development policy fact sheet to
guide construction of new subdivi-
sions in lead-contaminated areas.
They hope to expand this effort into
a county-wide Environmental
Master Plan that will establish
guidelines for future residential
development.
EPA will excavate and replace lead-contaminated yard soil at over 2,500
residences over the next five years.
Free blood lead screening
clinics operate at least two days a
week at local health departments,
supplemented by screening made
available through health fairs,
evening clinics in small communi-
ties, and a door-to-door mobile
screening unit. Door-to-door
screening was conducted in the
former smelter area in conjunction
with EPA's time-critical residen-
tial soil removal action in 1995.
Approximately 150 children were
screened in four days; screening
has been conducted at every day
care center in the county twice.
Information from blood lead tests
is entered into a state data base
that tracks blood lead levels and
correlates them with the child's
testing history, residence, address
history, and specific-address
occupant histories.
The $10,000 contribution from
Norandex to Joplin's health
department is being used to
develop new software that will
allow local health professionals to
download information from the
state data base and compare it
with highly specific local data.
The city has contracted with
Grant Environmental of
Englewood, Colorado, to adapt an
existing, off-the-shelf
software package to provide
program management and
feedback capabilities. With
the new software in place,
health department person-
nel will be able to use
information from the state
data base in conjunction
with new data fields captur-
ing the wealth of site-
specific information gath-
ered in the course of the
Superfund process and
HUD demonstration project,
perform enhanced statistical
operations on the data, and
use it to target future
health, education, and
cleanup initiatives.
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Creating Partnerships in Redevelopment • Jasper County/Norandex Inc., Joplin, Missouri • Summer 1997
Success in Jasper County
The Jasper County/Norandex Inc.
story is a milestone achievement for
both the community and the
Superfund program.
First, it showed that EPA's
brownfields tools work. Jim
Caulfield, the Norandex attorney,
makes that point clear: "We didn't
have any other issues with locating
in Joplin," he said, "but if s safe to
say that without the PPA, we would
have gone somewhere else."
Second, it showed that where EPA
has the cooperation of an energetic
and creative community, it can play a
positive role in promoting local
economic development while
fulfilling its mission to protect
human health and the environment.
Third, it showed how much an
affected community can contribute to
the Superfund program. Community
involvement in Jasper County has
been so vigorous that the Boston
University School of Public Health is
currently conducting an ATSDR-
funded study of local initiatives to
learn how health agencies can best
work with other communities
affected by hazardous wastes or toxic
chemicals.
Local ArtistAnnabelle Seelye Fuhr
designed a coloring book that
teaches children about the
dangers of lead and how to
avoid them.
Jasper County has prospered
despite the presence there of an
extensive NPL site. In the 1990s, the
county has experienced annual
population growth of approximately
1.5 percent, twice the rate for the
State of Missouri as a whole, and job
growth of three percent. With its
central location, low cost of living,
temperate climate, and proven
economic development strategy,
these trends should accelerate, and
EPA's Brownfields Initiative will
continue to support them.
Earl Carr, chairman of the Jasper
County EPA Superfund Citizens'
Task Force and mayor pro tern of
Joplin, sees the Norandex
development process as "taking
lemons and making them into
lemonade." He points out that the
property along a proposed U.S.
Highway 71 bypass east of Joplin
between Duenweg and Carterville is
ideal for industrial development.
With brownfields tools like the PPA
available to lay concerns about
potential Superfund liability to rest,
Mr.Carr believes there is a good
chance this development will actually
take place.
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