November SERA Partners in Progress Preview Federal Faclities Restoration and Reuse Office Redevelopment Transforms Defense Depot Into Award- Winning Business District A former federal facility in Utah has been recognized for its successful redevelopment. The Business Depot Ogden was awarded the prestigious Facility of the Year Award by the National Association of Installation Developers (NAID) in August, 2002. This award recognizes facilities that make outstanding achievements in revitalizing Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) communities. Business Depot Ogden currently occupies 6.5 million square feet of warehouse space, or 75 percent of a former Department of Defense (DoD) site. Since the construction began, the business district has created or retained more than 1,000 jobs, and job growth has occurred at a rate of 423 percent during the past four years. Business Depot Ogden is the result of cleanup and redevelopment activities at the former Defense Depot Ogden. Established in 1941, this former DoD distribution depot stored, maintained, and shipped a variety of defense-related materials. Although it was not identified for closure until 1995, EPA and DOD began cleanup in the late 1970s to address the heavy metals, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds Issue 7 that contaminated the site's soil and groundwater. Currently, DoD, U.S. EPA, EPA Region Department of and the Utah Mike Pavitch, head of the Ogden Local Redevelopment Authority, accepts the NAID 2002 Facility of the Year award. Environmental Quality continue to monitor cleanup activities at the site. After parcels of land are remediated, DoD transfers them to the Ogden Local Redevelopment Authority to be incorporated into the business district. Revitalized Naval Complex Puts Local Economy in Ship- Shape Condition The former Naval Complex in Charleston, South Carolina, is making waves in the BRAC community by creating one of the fastest job replacement rates following base closure. When the complex closed in 1996, 500 new employees were already employed on the site. Since then, the number of jobs has grown to more than 4,200 on the former base and 10,000 in the surrounding community. Established in 1902, the naval complex quickly became the Navy's third largest home port. The site housed operations for a variety of naval activities, including a 21-pier ship yard, training and supply centers, and a hospital. Decades of naval activity left the site contaminated with a variety of environmental hazards, including heavy metals, asbestos, and petroleum products. To speed up corrective action, and the Navy, working with EPA Region 4 and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, chose to test pilot an innovative contracting approach—a guaranteed fixed-price contract— and contributed $28.8 million to the project. The Navy also supplied initial funding to establish the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority, an organization that attracts new companies to the base. In addition, localgovenunent and businesses established a second ------- development entity, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, to promote economic growth both on the base and in the surrounding community. These agencies' recruitment efforts have encouraged 99 new companies to settle near the base, adding more jobs and $2.2 billion of direct capital investment to the region's economy. Army Facility Becomes Home Base For Modern Suburban Community Cameron Station, a 164-acre complex in Alexandria, Virginia, is the site of a former Army installation that was successfully transformed into a thriving community of single family homes, town homes, and condominiums. This community includes more than 2,000 housing units and commercial space, as well as a community center with recreational and health facilities. Beginning in the 1950s, Cameron Station provided general support to the Military District of Washington, including a steam plant, maintenance facility, print shops, and photo laboratory. Cameron Station also became the Headquarters, Defense Logistics Agency. In 1988, the Army recommended closing the site and relocating its activities. During this closure process, hazardous materials, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin, lead, pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons, trichloroethylene (TCE), and chlorinated hydrocarbons, were detected in the site's soil and groundwater. To prepare the site for closure, the BRAC cleanup team oversaw the removal of leaking underground storage tanks and PCBs from transformers. In addition, contractors performed soil excavation, sewer trap cleaning, and asbestos removal, and constructed a groundwater treatment system. The cleanup team also used soil vapor extraction to treat petroleum contamination at the site of a former gas station. In 1996, following these cleanup activities, the Army sold 101 acres of the property to local developer Greenvest L.C., with the remaining 63 acres transferred to the City of Alexandria for use as a park. Although early cleanup actions have been completed, the Army, state, and EPA continue to monitor the treatment of TCE contamination in the groundwater. Innovative Cleanup Paves Way For Advanced Technology at DOE Site Thanks to a unique process for identifying and remediating contamination, more than 40 percent of the former Mound Plant facility in Ohio has been transferred for redevelopment and is now the home of the growing Mound Advanced Technology Center. Nearly 10 years after redevelopment began, this new business and industrial park hosts 32 businesses employing more than 350 workers. Beginning in 1948, Mound Plant operated as a major research, development, and production site for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) weapons and energy defense projects. Early research activities took an environmental toll, however, and EPA placed the site on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL) in 1989 because of heavy radioactive and volatile organic compound contamination. In 1993, as the need for defense research decreased, DOE decided to decommission and redevelop the Mound site. Today, the Miamisburg Mound Community Improvement Corporation (MMCIC) is responsible for the site's redevelopment, while EPA, DOE, and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency take the lead on environmental cleanups. The federal government has committed $800 to $900 million to the cleanup project, which is scheduled for completion by 2006. All potential release sites have to be identified as needing no further action before the land is transferred for redevelopment. To speed land transfer, the team is using an innovative approach to the clean up effort—investigating approximately 400 smaller "potential release sites" rather than the nine larger operable units identified in the Federal Facility Agreement. This approach saves the team time and effort because it allows them to focus on contaminated areas individually and address them appropriately. Otherwise, all of the small problem areas would have to be treated as a larger group and would be subject to a lengthy evaluation process. The core cleanup team evaluates each potential release site and decides if it needs no further action, a response action, or further assessment. As part of this evaluation, the team considers how MMCIC wants to use the land before deciding on appropriate cleanup, and conducts a residual risk ujjijjmuit oi u fmul iliiik. Tliij ujjujmuil iinubu For more detailed versions of these articles, see the next issue o/Partners in Progress coming this winter. For more information about EPA 's Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office, call ------- compiling all final soil and groundwater data and verifying that the risk is acceptable for commercial reuse. Thanks to this new cleanup process, EPA has deleted from the NPL three of the four parcels of land which were then transferred for redevelopment. Join Our Mailing List If you would like to be on the FFRRO mailing list and receive future issues of Partners in Progress, please contact Dianna Young by mail at U.S. EPA/FFRRO (5106G), 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20460; by e-mail at yoimg.dianna@epa.gov; or fax to 703 603-0043. ------- |