VINEYARD — Chemical leftovers on 1,700 acres of lake-front property in Utah County that once was home to a steel plant aren't as pervasive as once thought, which could bode well for the state's Major League Soccer team considering a home outside of Salt Lake County.
"With proper remediation and management at the (old Geneva Steel) site, it's inhabitable land," said Allan Moore, manager of the Department of Environment Quality's Hazardous Waste Management Section. "There's some very good property down there that people could build on. The areas of the property not utilized as much are not as contaminated as the other more heavily used areas."
Cleanup of the Vineyard land is still in the identification stages, with Anderson Geneva Development Inc., which is developing the land, labeling which areas were most heavily contaminated by the steel production plant. The plant shut down in 2001 and is being dismantled piece by piece after the main stacks were brought down by dynamite in 2005.
While optimistic about one of the largest cleanup projects in the state, officials with DEQ said there are still areas with significant contamination that will need proper attention.
"We have . . . what we would call hot spots, fairly high levels of chemical contamination," said Dennis Downs, director of the DEQ. "(Then) there are areas that don't have any, so characterization of the entire site is quite a big job."
In six to 10 years, Moore estimated, most of the cleanup and construction would be done and people could already be living in residential zones.
But the cleanup process for a soccer stadium and parking lots could be done even quicker, Moore said. A paved lot for Real Salt Lake could serve as a cap on contaminated soil, as long as the soil underneath met the acceptable levels for contamination.
Any time frame is still tentative and depends on the type of structure constructed. Neighborhoods take the most time because of the strict requirements for soil and groundwater chemical levels.
Anderson Geneva, an affiliate of Sandy-based Anderson Development LLC, has offered the MLS team owner Dave Checketts 30 free acres in Vineyard for a soccer stadium. Checketts is considering the move because Salt Lake County officials have denied public funds for a stadium.
Checketts' deadline for a decision — whether to move to Utah County or out of the state — is Saturday.
But whatever the decision, the company will move ahead with the site environmental cleanup.
Anderson, with the help of U.S. Steel, is removing all the steel infrastructure so they can test and clean the soil underneath, said Dennis Astill, project manager and attorney for Anderson Geneva Development Inc. The company hopes to have some commercial property open within a year, Astill said.
"It would be surprising to the public to know . . . that of the 1,700 acres there, there's probably less than a tenth of that that has what you'd probably characterize as hazardous waste on it," Astill said.
Chemicals include benzene and toluene, coal tar, lead and other solid and liquid chemicals, Astill said.
Costs are still just an estimate at this point, Astill said.
"It's in the tens of millions, but how many tens I don't know," he said. The company is preparing a plan that will be reviewed by the DEQ within the next month or so.
"(The land) will be cleaned to a standard that will meet a residential use . . . so a homeowner would not have to be concerned," Astill said.
E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com