Henryetta Site Rises From Ashes — Returns to Productivity

Each year the Phoenix Awards Institute Inc., an environmental and community
service nonprofit organization, recognizes a project for "Excellence in Brownfield
Redevelopment" in Region 6 of the Environmental Protection Agency. Region 6
sites are in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas.

The 2007 winner of the prestigious
Phoenix Award will go to the Henryetta
Economic Development Authority
(HEDA) for the Shurden Leist Industrial
Park Project in Henryetta, Oklahoma.
It is located in the northeastern part of
the city on US Highway 75 and less
than a mile from Interstate 40. The site
is exciting because of the outstanding
cooperative effort extended by state,
community, city, county, U.S. govern-
ment agencies, and private enterprises.

The Shurden Leist Park was once an industrial area with three zinc smelters
which polluted the atmosphere, killed the vegetation and left behind huge
amounts of hazardous waste. The last smelter closed in 1968. The previous
owner/operator donated the property to the city in 1974, but the property lay
dormant until the mid 1990's when residents partnered with the Oklahoma
Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to begin a cleanup effort. The cleanup was conducted as a Time-Critical
Removal Action under the authority of the EPA Superfund Removal Program. The
mountains of waste were consolidated into a single pile with donated soil from a
nearby closed coal mine and capped with clay donated by a local glass manufac-
turer. With the cap complete however, the City still had difficulty in interesting
businesses to locate on the site. It remained vacant for ten years.

In 2004 the Henryetta Economic Development Authority (HEDA) requested help
from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ). After much
work with ODEQ and many commu-
nity discussions, the HEDA pursued
and received grants to remove waste
and replace it with clean soil and in-
stall utility corridors. The corridors,
the clean site, the location and at-
tractive business incentives combine
to encourage businesses to locate at
the park. The total project including
the original cleanup and the redevel-
opment cost nearly $9 million.
Now the Industrial Park consists of
70 acres of city-owned land with
public electrical and natural gas service on site. Railroads and four-lane divided
highways are easily accessible and the pavement on site connects with 1-40. The
award will be presented at the May 2008 National Brownfields Conference in De-
troit, Michigan.

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