State environmental officials are ending direct supervision of cleanup at the site of a 2022 fire that destroyed a Winston-Salem fertilizer plant, prompted a voluntary evacuation impacting thousands of nearby residents and led to a class-action lawsuit now subject to a proposed $8 million settlement.
Under an agreement with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Winston Weaver Co. now has three years to fully assess the presence of chemicals and metals, and five years to finalize a plan for adequately removing contaminants from groundwater on and near the 8-acre property by 2033.
The milestone also establishes a potential timeline for redevelopment of the now-cleared site at 4440 N. Cherry St.
"Future use of the property can often begin once the assessment is complete and known and predicted risks to human health and the environment are abated even when approved cleanup levels have not yet been met," NCDEQ spokeswoman Katherine Lucas said in an email Thursday.
That could potentially clear the way for use as early as July 2028. The tract is zoned for light manufacturing use and has a taxable value of a little more than $1 million after this year's countywide property reassessment, according to Forsyth tax records.
One certainty for the site is that it won't be home to a fertilizer plant, as it was for 80 years before being reduced to ash and warped metal. Nearly a year after the fire, Winston-Salem City Council approved amendments to its Unified Development Ordinance that limit fertilizer manufacturing to properties of at least 25 acres -- three times the size of the Weaver tract.
Additional assessment
Winston Weaver and the NCDEQ Division of Waste Management signed an agreement July 31 committing the company to a "voluntary remedial action program" and an annual status report of "one to two pages."
Shifting responsibility to a private firm through the state's Registered Environmental Consultant Program "allows us to focus on sites that are a priority or higher risk," DEQ Environmental Quality hydrologist Thomas Moore told the Journal in December.
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"There's not a risk to the community," Moore said at the time. "But we would say that there is some additional assessment that needs to be conducted before we completely have the full picture of how far the contamination has gone and what next remedial actions will be necessary."
Those potential remedies include removing soil, installing a system to withdraw and treat tainted groundwater and applying a deed restriction that limits future use of the tract, he added.
Contaminants discovered at the site included compounds found in the fertilizer stored there for years, as well as heavy metals - including arsenic - and concentrations of fuel likely present below ground for decades before the fire.
Onsite explosive
The blaze broke out Jan. 31, 2022, took days to extinguish and led to a voluntary evacuation affecting about 6,000 people over concerns that an estimated 600 tons of stored ammonium nitrate could trigger what Winston-Salem's fire chief suggested could have been "one of the worst explosions in U.S. history."
Smoke engulfed portions of the city for days and, at one point, EPA monitors reported air particulate levels seven times higher than what the agency deems "hazardous."
Runoff from more than 4.2 million gallons of water used to fight the fire sent chemicals into nearby creeks, killing fish and prompting the city to issue alerts encouraging residents to avoid those waters.
N.C. Department of Labor investigators concluded that improperly stored ammonium nitrate - a common ingredient in fertilizer - may have heightened the risk for a destructive, deadly blast, according to documents obtained by the Journal through a public records request.
The AN stored at the Winston Weaver facility was 20 times what was present at a Texas fertilizer plant when it exploded in 2013, killing 15 people (including a dozen first responders), injuring 250, leveling an entire block, and damaging or destroying more than 150 buildings, including two schools and a nursing home.
On Aug. 6, attorneys revealed in Forsyth County Superior Court that they'd reached an $8 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit against the company by residents who lived near the plant at the time of the fire.
A judge still must approve the deal.
John Deem covers Winston-Salem, Greensboro and beyond. Contact him at [email protected].
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