Blighted Land Gets New Face

"You look back in there and it looks horrible," said JoAnn T. Crary, president of Saginaw Future Inc., referring to the Ferro-Met property between North Washington and the Saginaw River.

"Now it's going to be cleaned up," she said.

The starting point was the Saginaw County Brownfield Authority's possession of $850,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Federal officials soon were ready to take back the cash if local leaders didn't put it to use, Crary said.

Brownfield Authority leaders will loan the money to the County Economic Development Corp. for cleanup, which will strive to meet a 90 percent repayment requirement by landing money from the state Department of Environmental Quality.

County development leaders then will have the option of using the repayment sum, $765,000, for future projects.

CSX Transportation, which owns the 14-acre Ferro-Met property, will deed the land to Rifkin for $1. Crary is negotiating with the railroad company also to help pay for the cleanup, estimated at $1.4 million.

Ferro-Met, incorporated in 1967, processed scrap metal at its North Washington facility for two decades.

By 1973, the company was shredding about 50,000 car bodies a year, separating steel from other materials and shipping it off for reprocessing. The state Department of Natural Resources found polychlorinated biphenyl contamination of soil and machinery at the site in 1988 and the company, which employed 11 workers, shut down soon after.

"The whole project (for Rifkin to move) could take two years," Crary said, "but by summer, people should be happy to see that the Ferro-Met property is cleaned up and the abandoned buildings are torn down."

She said the site contains 26,000 cubic yards of contaminated "fluff" materials, such as the remains of shredded fabrics and plastics. Cleanup will require crews to remove the top 12 inches of topsoil and then install leakproof lining, she said.

Crary said Rifkin, in contrast, does not shred toxic materials and constantly ships final products from its site. Ferro-Met and Rifkin both may have reputations as scrap yards but the shredding performed is not comparable, she said.

Rifkin at the North Washington location will build offices up front to help shield the scrap operation and also will install "shroud" devices to muffle sound, Crary said.

The company will benefit from low-tax state renaissance zone status that is available on North Washington but not on North Niagara, she said.

At the same time, Rifkin will keep ownership of its 10 acres on North Niagara but has pledged to return the land to "green" status. A wetland is between Rifkin and the North Michigan business corridor across from Covenant Medical Center.

Rifkin has 50 employees and will add at least five with an expanded operation, she said. Saginaw (Michigan) New