Celebrating 10 Years of Returning a
Superfund Sites to Beneficial Use
REGION 8
Success Story
Midvale Slag:
Midvale, Utah
EPA has been working with the Midvale community to return the
Midvale Slag Superfund site to beneficial use since 1999. Once home
to five smelters, the site is now becoming a large-scale, commercial,
recreational, and residential development. The Superfund
Redevelopment Initiative (SRI) worked with the Region to help make
this transformation possible, awarding a Pilot grant in 1999,
highlighting the site as a 2006 Return to Use demonstration project and
providing a Ready for Reuse determination in 2008.
The 446-acre site is located about 12 miles south of Salt Lake City in
Midvale, Utah. Smelting activities began in 1871 and continued until
the last smelter closed in 1958. Studies initiated in 1984 found that
ground water and soil were contaminated with heavy metals. In 1990,
EPA initiated cleanup actions to excavate and remove contaminated
soils from the site, including residential yards, and put clean soil in its
place. Though ground water remediation is on-going, the cleanup
remedy is complete.
Midvale Slag, along with its sister site, Sharon Steel, comprise the
majority of the City of Midvale's available land for expansion. The
sites present unique opportunities to create a sustainable community in
the heart of Midvale, a rapidly growing bedroom community of Salt
Lake City. EPA worked with site stakeholders to develop a reuse plan
entitled the Bingham Junction Reuse Assessment and Master Plan.
Redevelopment of the site into Bingham Junction is underway, and
families began moving into new condominiums in 2008. The restored
riparian border of the Jordan River will be a linear City park with trails
linking up with the Greater Salt lake area trail system. Additionally,
Utah Transit Authority has begun construction of a light commuter rail
through the site, allowing for further transit-oriented development.
"The key to our progress redeveloping
this site is very good communication
between EPA, the local government,
and the Technical Assistance Grant
(TAG) and stakeholder groups. We
had to work together to make this
happen, and everyone plays an
important part. Among other things,
the City makes sure the ICs
[Institutional Controls] are enforced;
construction folks are always available
on-site to report any issues; EPA is
very responsive to our needs. We all
know what the ICs are because we
developed them together. " - Midvale
stakeholder
"Today, I don't think the general public
even knows that this is Superfund site.
To me this means the right remedy was
chosen, that the site was cleaned up
appropriately." - Midvale stakeholder
For more information, please contact
Melissa Friedland, at
friedland.melissa@epa.gov, or Frank
Avvisato, at avvisato.frank@epa.gov.
Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation
Superfund Redevelopment Initiative
February 2010

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