Photo by Jeffrey Saulton One of several piles of debris on the Johns Manville site will have to be removed before the City of Vienna can progress on redevelopment.

VIENNA — While a lot of work has been done on the new Spencer’s Landing in Vienna, there is still a lot of work left to do to make about half of the 35-acre site suitable for post-industrial development.

Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp said the city applied for a Brownfields grant last May and even if the city does not receive the grant, it has received what he called “outstanding help” from the Brownfields Center in Morgantown and the regional council.

Rapp said the project has received a lot of help from a council member who ran on a platform of moving forward with redevelopment plans and took office at the beginning of this year.

“I am encouraged by Jim Leach, one of the new members of (Vienna City Council) has taken an interest in this,” Rapp said. “He has some experience with this since one of pieces of land he owns was in remediation for a number of years.”

Rapp said information about the site has been shared with Leach and they hope his experience in dealing with the state environmental regulators will help the city.

“We are so much need encouraged by that,” Rapp said. “That will be a big asset since there is a lot of work to do down there. Our new council members have a different attitude, and we have set aside money in the budget to go ahead with the cleanup.”

Rapp said the city is working with Waste Management to get the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to give the company a permit to handle asbestos waste at its facility at Dry Run off U.S. 50.

“They are working on their end to get an asbestos permit, otherwise all the waste will have to go to Bridgeport or Athens,” he said.

Leach said he and the mayor toured the site with a remediation expert.

“We identified a total of eight major debris piles on the site,” Leach said. “What happened is the former owner did some demolition and co-mingled debris and material with non-asbestos matter like block and wood with asbestos, contaminating everything.”

Leach said one thing that will help with expense is if the state will permit an asbestos waste facility closer to Vienna.

“Our goal is if we can get cooperation from the DEP we will not have to go far away,” he said. “Other sites are in Bridgeport and Athens and one charges by weight and the other by volume.”

Leach said a decision on the permit is expected by spring for the facility that was created to hold waste from fracking sites.

“Waste Management created four cells for fracking waste and since that has not developed they are on board for taking the asbestos waste and we can save money on project,” he said. “This is our third application for the $200,000 Brownfields remediation grant and it has been an exercise in persistence.”

Rapp said Paul Thornton, Vienna’s community development director, has been working on the grant.

Leach said in 2015 he earned a Master of Laws in energy and sustainable development and the curriculum focused on environmental and hazardous waste law. The experience he gained in voluntary remediation will help the city through the cleanup project.

Once the remediation is completed, Leach said the city will be able to progress through several phases this year. He said the city will be able to recoup some of the costs from selling the scrap from the old plant.

“There is a lot of salvage material, a lot of steel, but the piles of debris have to be dealt with first,” he said. “That plant is built on a concrete pad, once those debris piles are gone its going to get much easier to remediate the rest of the site.”

When the site was purchased by the city, it was announced a company was interested in acquiring the site. However,. Rapp said the company is no longer interested.

“Their project has outgrown the site now and they have moved on to a bigger property,” he said.

Since the purchase, part of the property intended for a new public park has been developing with the addition of the Gold Star Memorial and more is planned for the spring, Rapp said.

“Our park side is developing nicely and the industrial side is cleaning up for new business,” he said. “That area will have a beautiful view of the Ohio River once everything cleared out. We will start work on the walking trail and for the park, I am looking forward to that with the picnic shelters, some of the original pad for a shelter where Johns Manville used to have a park for employees.”