Smelter site cleanup

MURRAY — Not contaminated enough to be a Superfund site but too dangerous for residents to live on.

That's the way an environmentalist and geologist describe the Fireclay District, a 97-acre redevelopment property in Murray. Once home to smelters, city officials hope they can turn the site — which stretches between State Street and I-15 to 4100 South and 4500 South — into a transit-oriented, mixed-use, walkable community.

But first, environmental cleanup needs to take place.

The site is not problematic enough to be controlled by the state or the Environmental Protection Agency, said Joe Katz, an environmental scientist with Utah's Department of Environmental Quality. "These sites just kind of sit in limbo," he explained, because they are not the "nastiest of nasty."

However, it is listed on the the EPA's database of potential hazardous sites, called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Information System (CERCLIS), Katz said. Developers will use a voluntary cleanup program, which is allowed through a 1997 state law, to pay the state for cleanup on the site.

"Right now, we're waiting on results on the last round of investigation," Katz said. "We hope to be in development and remediation soon."

Fortunately, the site does not have groundwater contamination. But metals remain in the soil from the site's smelting days, said Chris Nolan, senior geologist with IHI Environmental, a consulting firm hired by the developers to analyze and survey the site. "Metals don't migrate," he said. "They're up high on the ground."

"The way you have to do it is take land use into consideration," Nolan said. Clean-up "has to be up to a higher standard, because it's residential versus commercial."

Smelters are a large part of Murray's past and were active in the city between 1869 and the end of World War II. Murray has been trying to lose its image of industrial blight and has developed or is currently working on developing numerous old smelter grounds. The Fireclay District includes the abandoned Simpson Steel and Morgan or Hanover Smelting Works.

Cleanup is currently only occurring on 15 acres east of a TRAX line, where the first stage of developments, Birkhill at Fireclay, will be built. The Hamlet Homes property includes condos, offices and stores. Plans for additional construction across Fireclay Avenue include a plaza and TRAX stop.