Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 19, 1993 TAG: 9307190094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PINEY RIVER LENGTH: Medium
Acidic-waste runoff from the site contaminated ground water, which flowed into the Piney River, causing problems long after the Wayne, N.J.-based company left in 1971.
After losing a legal battle against the state in 1985, American Cyanamid was ordered to spend at least $5.5 million to clean up the waste.
Nelson County is selling the property for about $22,000, County Treasurer J. Marvin Davis said last week. The property was owned by a group of area investors called U.S. Titanium, and the last owner is deceased.
The site is on the federal Superfund list of priority cleanups, and the owner of the land is liable for cleaning up the waste, said Ray L. Merrell, the company's environmental project manager.
Hundreds of Nelson County residents worked at American Cyanamid producing titanium dioxide - a pigment used in paints - for more than 20 years before the business moved to Georgia.
During the plant's operation, workers dumped a pile of copperas, a titanium dioxide byproduct, on a hillside near the river.
When mixed with air and rain, the copperas produced sulfuric acid, which contaminated the river and killed about 200,000 fish in the 1970s, said Jennifer Ebert, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Quality.
After the fish kill, 16,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil were buried in a two-acre, clay-lined pit at the site in 1980. After losing its court battle, American Cyanamid became liable for the remainder of the cleanup.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Quality are supervising the operation.
by CNB