COMMERCE PARK Owners unclear on effects of probe

Railroad cars were once made at the plant.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
GREENVILLE, Pa. -- The new owners of the former Trinity Industries plant don't know if the state search for hazardous materials at the site will hinder their efforts to convert the plant into an industrial park.
Dean Gearhart, a partner in Commerce Park of Greenville Inc., said his company had no idea that agents of the state attorney general's office and the Department of Environmental Protection were coming until they showed up at the plant Wednesday with a search warrant.
Court documents filed in the warrant application said the state is looking into reports of hazardous materials' being illegally discarded at the plant when it was run by Trinity Industries Inc. from 1985 to 2000, and by Greenville Steel Car Co., which operated the 475,000-square-foot plant before selling it to Trinity.
The documents allege that various solvents, paint wastes and contaminated transformer oil were allowed to saturate soil at various locations in the plant complex between 1984 and 2000.
The plant manufactured railroad cars.
Refurbishing has begun
Commerce Park of Greenville bought the plant from Trinity in February of this year. Gearhart said two of the six bays in the main building have been cleaned out and refurbished to the point where they could be leased to prospective industrial tenants.
He said Friday that he doesn't know yet if the state investigation will impede the project.
The state brought in digging equipment to remove some suspected contaminated soil for testing and that process took just one day, Gearhart said.
The state hasn't told Commerce Park not to do any work in the plant, so the restoration of the manufacturing bays will continue at this time, Gearhart said, adding that the state agents indicated his company would get a report on what was found.
If conditions warrant it, the state could order an environmental cleanup of the property, a project that Trinity would likely be asked to finance.
Greenville Steel Car is no longer in business but Trinity is still an operating company, based in Texas.
A Trinity spokesman said the company has no knowledge of any environmental violations at the plant and will cooperate with authorities in the investigation.