Brownfields
Success Story
From Cement Mill to
Calamityville®
Fairborn, Ohio
For almost 90 years, the 54-acre site at 506 East Xenia Drive in Fairborn,
Ohio, produced cement, an ingredient critical to building infrastructure in
the region. Today, the property has been reborn as a training venue where
emergency first responders build their skills.
The old cement manufacturing plant now is home to the National Center
for Medical Readiness and Calamityville®, an education, training, product
testing and research facility for medical and non-medical civilian and military
personnel. Operated by Wright State University, the facility features training
zones with real-world props to recreate disaster scenarios from plane
crashes and floods to hostage situations and mass casualty events.
But going from manufacturing plant to training and research facility was no
small feat, in part due to the presence of environmental contamination at
the site. Helmed by Fairborn City Manager Deborah McDonnell, the job of
aligning the stakeholders, navigating the legal hurdles, cleaning up the site
and transitioning the property to its new owner took nearly 7 years. But the
effort breathed new life into an abandoned industrial site near the heart
of downtown.
The Opportunity
Built in 1924, the cement plant flourished throughout much of the 20th
century, taking advantage of the large local source of limestone and nearby
rail infrastructure for transporting product. At its peak, the plant churned out
700,000 tons of portland and masonry cements each year. By the late 1990s,
however, the main plant had moved out of town, leaving behind an office
complex, various processing and maintenance buildings, and eight storage
silos that sat idle. City officials were eager to find a new use for the site.
Just weeks after taking the job as city manager, McDonnell, along with
Fire Chief Mike Riley, met with two Wright State University doctors who
identified a need to train for disaster response in a lifelike setting. Both
had served at the front lines providing emergency medical services after
the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. These
&EPA
Police are conducting a hostage rescue and
extraction exercise on a school bus at the
Calamityville® training facility.
EPA Grant Recipient:
City of Fairborn
Grant Type:
EPA Brownfield Cleanup Grant
Former Use:
Cement manufacturing plant
Current Use:
National Center for Medical
Readiness at Wright State
University
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
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• • One of the unique
features of the site
is the ability to
research and test
new technologies,
clothing and
equipment used at
disaster scenes to
improve safety for
responders and
enhance medical
treatments
without having to
rely on trial and
error during a real
disaster, yy
Deborah McDonnell
City Manager
City of Fairborn, Ohio
experiences helped confirm for them the need for specialized training for
personnel providing medical services at the scene of a major disaster and for
bridging communication gaps between military and civilian responders.
First responders need to make decisions on the fly. "When they arrive at the
scene of an incident," McDonnell says, "they have to assess the situation and
determine what care to provide in the field and who goes to the hospital.
The hospital itself can become a disaster area when emergency room
doctors, nurses and staff are not trained to accommodate large numbers of
patients all at once."
The proximity to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Wright State University
and hospitals in the Dayton region made the old cement plant an ideal
location for a medical training facility. These stakeholders could help
transform emergency medical training to better prepare first responders for
disasters and provide an opportunity for civilian and military responders to
work cooperatively on-scene.
The Challenges
After securing support from local firefighters, McDonnell's team
developed a business plan and pitched it to the university. Officials
with Wright State University embraced the idea and the opportunity
it offered for creating a national response center, though the
contamination at the site was a concern. Environmental assessments
had identified asbestos, metals, volatile organic compounds including
trichloroethylene and underground storage tanks on the property.
The city's efforts to secure a No Further Action letter, however, helped
provide assurances that once the site was remediated, the university
would not have to assume liability for any preexisting contamination.
Cemex Inc., the cement plant's most recent owner, agreed to donate
the property to the city for research and development. By donating the
property, the company received a tax write-off, and the city was able to
save some of the structures and reuse them—and put the property back
into productive use. To access brownfield funding from the state, the
city agreed to oversee the cleanup and then donate the property to
the university.
"Everyone had to agree at the same time," McDonnell says. "That was a
big challenge. The lesson here is never give up regardless of setbacks."
The Cleanup
A backhoe is removing asbestos-
containing materials from the site.
Funding for the site remediation came from a $200,000 Brownfield
Cleanup Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
$1 million from Wright State University and $2.8 million from the Clean
Ohio Fund.
The cleanup process took about 2 years to complete. Some of the old
buildings were demolished. Asbestos was removed from inside and
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outside the buildings that would remain, including some underground tunnels.
Workers remediated trichloroethylene from the soil in an area where train cars
used to be cleaned. Remnants of the old manufacturing plant were removed from
the site, as were a few abandoned underground fuel tanks. Workers also cleaned
up some oil in the old mechanic's garage. Although the groundwater onsite is not
potable, it was repurposed for use in an energy-saving geothermal system for
heating and cooling.
The Rebirth
Today, the property is the home office for the National Center for Medical
Readiness, along with the tactical training facility known as Calamityville®. It is
the first-ever research and training facility focused on the medicine of emergency
disaster response.
What remains of the old cement plant is a massive, 9-story, 300-foot-long
industrial building, which now features a crashed airplane training piece
embedded in its side. The old storage silos will become deep-water diving tanks.
Full-size school buses, military troop transports and other equipment facilitate
reenacting emergencies, such as an armed hijacking or rescuing survivors in an
overturned vehicle. The acres of open space are ideal for staging large-scale
vehicle pileups, and state-of-the-art classrooms and labs offer venues for pre- and
post-scenario discussions. The university even secured a piece of steel from the
World Trade Center for an onsite 9/11 memorial.
"The vision is to prepare fire, police and health care professionals for their
'worst day,'" McDonnell says. "The facility is open to everyone and provides an
opportunity to train in a safe environment that looks just like a disaster they may
face on any given day." Already, the center has training agreements with the state
and local police and the nearby Air Force base.
The Benefits
The project is poised to deliver a variety of benefits for the region. Due to the
property's location on a state highway and close to downtown, McDonnell expects
the site to become a viable economic driver. Already, 16 permanent jobs have
been created and more are expected as the university brings in additional staff to
do the training. "There is huge economic potential now that the facility is up and
running," she says. "People will come from all over the country for training."
Plans are underway for multiple hotels and restaurants to be built in the area
to support the training facility. The city also plans to increase office space for
research and development activities and is reaching out to local businesses for
ways to better serve training participants when they come to town. Plus, the city
is developing a bikeway connector that goes by the site.
"The keys to success are finding an end user for the land and having a vision to
help market the site you're going to clean up," McDonnell says. "And allow for
flexibility in the business plan for when unexpected issues arise."
A World Trade Center memorial was
erected in front of the center's offices.
Fire and emergency medical services staff
are participating in high-altitude rescue
training on the repurposed storage silos.
For more information:
Visit the EPA Brownfields website
at www.epa.gov/brownfields
or contact Brad Bradley at
(312) 886-4742 or
bradley.brad@epa.gov.
EPA 560-F-14-205
August 2014
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