The Sanatoga Post

POTTSTOWN PA – Current and former owners and operators of what once was an Occidental Chemical Corporation manufacturing plant on the southeast corner of Armand Hammer Boulevard and Industrial Highway in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township have agreed to pay $2.1 million for earlier cleanup efforts the site, the federal Environmental Protection Agency regional office in Philadelphia announced Wednesday (Jan. 25, 2012).

One of several entrances to the now-cleaned OxyChem site on Armand Hammer Boulevard, being marketed as the Tri-County Commerce Park

Under a consent decree filed in federal court by the Justice Department on behalf of EPA, the companies also assumed responsibility for all future cleanup costs. They include Occidental Chemical Corp., the most recent owner and often referred to as OxyChem; Glenn Springs Holdings Inc., an OxyChem subsidiary that has been managing the property’s clean-up and re-development; and Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, which preceded OxyChem at the site with a tire manufacturing plant.

OxyChem manufactured polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic resins there from 1980 to 2005. It bought the property from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, now known as Bridgestone, which manufactured tires and PVC there from about 1945 to 1980.

From 1942 to 1985, operators used The site was used to dispose of industrial wastes including cutting oils, metal filings, tires, and PVC sludge resins. It was identified as having unsafe levels of trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride, and other hazardous substances in the soil and groundwater.

After OxyChem ended operations, the site was investigated during 1983 and later for potential pollutants. It was declared an EPA “Superfund” site to designate it as among the nation’s “most contaminated” locations, the agency announcement said. OxyChem, under EPA oversight, performed remedial action on the property and completed construction in 2008.

As of Thursday (Jan. 26), according to the EPA, the property was now considered safe for human exposure, and the migration of any contaminated ground water was deemed to be under control.

To encourage development along Armand Hammer Boulevard, which was renamed for OxyChem’s president, Lower Pottsgrove‘s Board of Commissioners had created a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance Act (LERTA) district to give incoming business owners property tax breaks within the area. The district included the former OxyChem facility, the land now occupied by Aldi’s Supermarket and Home Depot, and other parcels stretching east to Sanatoga Station Road. The district’s authorization ended in 2008.

The property has since enjoyed a rebirth as a location for light- and moderate-industrial uses, and is being marketed as the Tri-County Commerce Park. A brochure about its tenants and available space can be downloaded here.

Other coverage:

• $2.1M settlement announced for Oxychem site (The Mercury)

Photo from CB Richard Ellis

A satellite image of the former OxyChem property on Armand Hammer Blvd., provided by Google.

SANATOGA PA – Following an early evening hearing that drew neither questions or comments from the public, the proposed removal of a firefighting reservoir at the former Occidental Chemical Corp. property on Armand Hammer Boulevard was unanimously approved Thursday (July 22, 2010) by the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Board of Commissioners.

Commissioners granted the conditional use sought by Glenn Springs Holdings Inc., an Occidental subsidiary, to drain the reservoir’s remaining water into the nearby Schuylkill River and dismantle the concrete-lined pond. It once provided an added measure of safety for what years ago was a large industrial facility; modern firefighting facilities have made the pond unnecessary.

The reservoir occupies about 20,000 square feet of space on 1.3 acres of land that will be affected by the project. In addition, Glenn Springs will remove two adjacent, free-standing structures, its representatives told board members. The property will then be back-filled and leveled.

In recent years Glenn Springs has transformed the entire Occidental complex, which earlier also was home to Pottstown’s Firestone Tire manufacturing plant, into what is now branded as the Tri-County Commerce Park. Light industrial and warehouse tenants occupy some of its available buildings; more tenants are being sought for others.

Commissioners Bruce Foltz and Michael McGroarty were absent from the board’s second meeting of the month in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA, and did not vote.

Related:

• Occidental Reservoir Removal Wins Board Approval
• Commissioners’ Hearing Tonight On Reservoir Removal
• Planners Approve OxyChem Reservoir Removal
• Occidental Wants To Empty Fire Water Reservoir
• Real Estate’s Improved For School District Tax-Wise
• Unusually Narrow Road OK For Occidental Land
• Planners Flexible In Subdivision Plan
• Planners Accept Oxy Lot Change
• OxyChem Down, Firestone Next
• Boulevard Name Remains The Same

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ July 22 meeting):

• Occidental Reservoir Removal Wins Board Approval
• Commissioners’ Hearing Tonight On Reservoir Removal

Image from Google Maps

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SANATOGA PA – The owner of the former Occidental Chemical and Firestone Tire properties at the south end of Armand Hammer Boulevard has asked Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township for permission to empty what is described as a large reservoir of clean water intended for fire-fighting use on the site that is being re-developed as a commercial and industrial park.

A new sign at its entrance welcomes visitors to the Tri-County Commerce Park on the former Occidental Chemical property off Armand Hammer Boulevard. Its main warehouse building is in the background at right.

Both the township Planning Commission and the Board of Commissioners were told this month of the request by Glenn Springs Holdings Inc., the company responsible for the clean-up and transformation of what was once considered a collection of parcels contaminated by hazardous waste that resulted from years of manufacturing there.

A public conditional use hearing on the proposal has been scheduled by commissioners for July 22 (2010; Thursday) at 6:45 p.m. in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA. The hearing and commissioners’ approval are needed because the holding pond is within the Schuylkill River floodplain, township Assistant Manager Alyson Elliott explained.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

State and federal agencies also may comment on the request.

Township planners, who will not rule on the proposal but heard about it during their June 21 meeting, estimated the pond may contain as much as 5 million gallons of water. “Where is it all going to go?,” Planning Commissioner William Wolfgang wondered. “Do they plan to pump it into the Schuylkill?,” he asked. Answers to both questions weren’t available at the time, but likely will be for the public hearing, Elliott said.

Occidental, its affiliates, and other parties have spent years and millions of dollars to find and remove hazardous materials from the site; tear down several buildings and improve others; and generally remake the properties under government inspection into a more attractive environment for business use.

Occidental is the latest owner of the 257-acre industrial property that since the 1940s has been home to the Jacobs Aircraft Engine Company, Firestone, and Hooker Chemicals and Plastics. Much of the hazardous waste buried there resulted from the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride compounds used in a variety of plastics. A portion of the land was declared a federal Superfund property, which Occidental agreed to clean under Environmental Protection Agency supervision. Glenn Springs is an Occidental subsidiary.

Now marketed as the Tri-County Commerce Park, the properties are home to five companies who use warehouse space there for tires, shipping distribution, and a packaging center. “They’ve put a lot of investment over there,” Commissioner Bruce Foltz said of Glenn Springs during that board’s June 17 meeting. “There’s a lot of usable open space, and a lot of potential,” he noted.

Related:

• Occidental Wants To Empty Fire Water Reservoir
• Real Estate’s Improved For School District, Tax-Wise
• Unusually Narrow Road OK For Occidental Land
• Firestone Plant Flattened (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 01 Sept. 2009)
• Coventry Christian OK To Grade For Gym Expansion
• Planners Flexible In Subdivision Plan
• Now’s The Time For Park Access
• Planners Accept Oxy Lot Change
• OxyChem Down, Firestone Next
• Boulevard Name Remains The Same
• Is There A Bright Future For OxyChem? (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 24 Sept. 2008)
• Occidental Site Has Potential, But Clean Up Must Be Done Right (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 07 June 2008)
• Sludge Heading To Canada (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 18 April 2008)
• Recycling A Piece Of The Past (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 25 Nov. 2007)
• Occidental Officials Hope To Truck Toxic Waste To Canada (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 25 Aug. 2007)
• Local Group: Remove Polluted Lagoon Sludge (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 29 April 2007)
• Sewer Authority To Get $200K For OxyChem (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 29 April 2007)
• Montgomery County Environmental Scorecard (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 25 Feb. 2007)
• OxyChem Proposal Could Cost Lower Pottsgrove Ratepayers (The Mercury, Pottstown PA, 04 March 2006)

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POTTSTOWN PA – In their continuing attempt to make the former Occidental Chemical Corp. property more usable and marketable, its owners have won approval from Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township to build a somewhat unusual access road and truck parking lot there.

The former Occidental property is now being marketed as the Tri-County Commerce Park.

The township Board of Commissioners unanimously agreed to issue a permit to BCW Associates Ltd., allowing it to grade 5.15 acres of land at 351 and 375 Armand Hammer Blvd., Pottstown PA, for the lot that will serve a warehouse and offer truck access to its northeastern side. The property is located in an HI heavy industrial zoning district.

The truck lot itself is typical, township Assistant Manager Alyson Elliott said, although it lacks a landscaping island that normally accompanies open asphalt spaces for 10 or more vehicles. Commissioners granted a waiver that allows BCW to make up for that loss by planting five trees elsewhere on the property.

What’s different is the access driveway truckers must use to reach the lot. Its design is confined by a restriction that nearby railroad tracks remain undisturbed, and by easement boundaries that can’t be changed. Township engineering representative Chad Camburn of Bursich Associates said that means the road will be unusually narrow – possibly only wide enough for one truck, not two – in some spots.

To avoid the possibility of accidents, engineers demanded that BCW install a variety of traffic controls to keep opposing trucks out of each other’s way on the driveway. The company also must to sign a legal acknowledgment that holds Lower Pottsgrove harmless if a future mishap occurs there.

That document, and the fact that the township won’t later be asked to own or maintain the road, gave commissioners some comfort. The board approved the permit last Monday (Oct. 5, 2009) during the first of two regular monthly meetings in the township municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA.

The plan also was approved by Lower Pottsgrove’s Planning Commission during its Sept. 30 (2009) meeting.

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ Oct. 5 meeting):

• Were Drunks Smarter In September? Nah …
• Detective Effort Credited In Bomb Threat Arrest
• County EIT Group Meets Oct. 28, Board Learns
• No Plans To Dredge Sanatoga Lake At $500,000
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SANATOGA PA – Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township planners demonstrated Monday (May 18, 2009) they could be flexible in helping both industrial property owners and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) meet their respective goals.

Being marketed.

Members of the township Planning Commission, in their monthly meeting at the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., gave Occidental Chemical Corp. and BCW Associates Ltd. up to 12 months to identify and place certain lot line markers, called monuments, on adjoining parcels they own at 351 and 375 Armand Hammer Blvd. The properties are part of an industrial and business park being marketed on the site of the former Occidental manufacturing plant.

A portion of the properties faces U.S. Route 422 near the Armand Hammer Boulevard interchange, where PennDOT has told Occidental it may rebuild and modify the highway within a year. Placing the monuments immediately,  considered a standard engineering practice, would increase Occidental’s costs if the highway department later used a slice of the frontage in its reconstruction, a company representative told board members.

“I’d like to pay for setting the pins just once, not twice,” he said. The board agreed, and offered the 12-month window so PennDOT could complete its roadway plans and notify Occidental of what, if any, land it might need to complete them.

Board members also approved other changes on the properties subject to supervision and approval by township staff members and engineers. Occidental representatives also agreed to return for further planning approvals as their marketing plans developed.

Monday’s review was the second time in as many months that the Occidental-BCW minor subdivision plan, which involves a change in lot lines, came before the board. It requires approval by the township Board of Commissioners, which is expected to consider the matter before July 6.

Related:

• “Now’s The Time” For Park Access
• Planners Accept Oxy Lot Change

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SANATOGA PA – A two-acre change between lot lines and property owners that not only will save a building but make former industrial land more marketable was approved Monday (April 20, 2009) by the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Planning Commission.

Planners gave their blessing, during a monthly meeting in the township municipal building, to a minor subdivision proposal involving Occidental Chemical Corp. and BCW Associates Ltd. on properties at 351 and 375 Armand Hammer Blvd. The proposal reduces Occidental’s parcel from 222.8 acres to 220.9, and increases BCW’s holding from 40.8 acres to 42.6 in the township’s heavy industrial district.

The shift in lot lines and, if later approved by the township Zoning Hearing Board, subsequent zoning variances will allow the parties to retain rather than demolish a building on one lot, according to an Occidental attorney who made the company’s presentation to commission members.

The unanimous approval came at the end of an unusually lengthy commission meeting. During most months planners conclude their business within an hour, allowing them to get home to delayed but not-too-late dinners. But extensive discussions about an assisted and independent living facility proposed to be built near Pottstown Memorial Medical Center involved the group for slightly longer than double its average session.

Related:

• Paired Living Facility Proposed Near Hospital

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