Leveling of Plant to Begin: FMC Demolition to Start Next Week, Will Cost Millions

By GEORGE HOHMANN

Bianchi Industrial Services will begin demolition of the old FMC steam plant on MacCorkle Avenue in South Charleston next week, said Jim Bodamer, FMC’s manager of remediation.

Representatives of Syracuse, N.Y.-based Bianchi and Project Manager Ronald Robson of Project Management Services, Scott Depot, met with Bodamer at the plant on Thursday to go over the details of the demolition project, which is expected to cost several million dollars.

Bianchi will begin mobilizing equipment at the site on Nov. 26 and will place a work trailer on the plant grounds behind the White Dodge dealership, Bodamer said.

Motorists passing on MacCorkle Avenue won’t see the first phase of the demolition. That’s because the action will take place inside the plant, where Bianchi will begin by removing all asbestos.

The company will encapsulate the interior of the plant and apply negative air pressure so any dust created during the asbestos removal will go into the building rather than out of the building.

Shortly after asbestos removal begins, Bianchi will start removing the steam pipes that snake along the Kanawha River to Clearon Corp. and cross MacCorkle Avenue to FMC’s mothballed Spring Hill hydrogen peroxide plant.

Bodamer said all of the structures on the steam plant site would be removed. In addition to the plant itself, which has two smokestacks, there’s a water treatment building, a building that was used for offices, a maintenance building, an equipment storage building, coal load out facilities for both trucks and river barges, and several de-energized electricity pylons that served the plant from Appalachian Power’s South Charleston substation on 11th Avenue.

The work plan calls for finishing the entire project in May.

When finished, FMC will have between seven and eight acres available for sale. The steam plant sits on about one acre. It is at the far eastern end of FMC’s land, next to The Dow Chemical Co.’s South Charleston plant. FMC’s property runs west to the Joe Holland Service Center on D Street. Holland bought that land from FMC several years ago.

South Charleston Mayor Frank Mullins said last week that he knows there’s been some interest in FMC’s property from another company in the valley. He declined to name the company. "We’re pretty excited and optimistic that the property will be redeveloped in the near future," Mullins said.

The steam plant was built between 1910 and 1920. It was shut down in 2003 – the same year FMC mothballed its Spring Hill hydrogen peroxide plant. The closures resulted in the loss of 55 jobs. When FMC shut down the steam plant, the company said the facility was being mothballed. But in 2005 the company decided the steam plant had to be demolished.

Contact writer George Hohmann at business@dailymail.com or 348- 4836.

Originally published by DAILY MAIL BUSINESS EDITOR.

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