STATE HWY 235
The 5,170-acre site is located in Talladega County, Alabama, just east of the Coosa River and 40 miles southeast of Birmingham. The nearest city is Childersburg, which is about four miles south of the site. From 1941 until 1945, a company manufactured explosives at the plant under contract with the federal government. In August 1945, the federal government placed the plant on standby status. In 1973, the Army declared the plant to be excess property and transferred it to the General Services Administration (GSA) so that GSA could sell the property. However, GSA rejected about 1,620 acres of the former manufacturing area because of contamination concerns. In 1977, a company purchased a 1,354-acre parcel located within the GSA portion of the site for use as a paper mill. Bowater Newsprint Corporation currently owns the paper mill. In 1981, parties divided most of the site into two areas: - Area A (2,714 acres): the location of the plant’s former storage area and the GSA Area. - Area B (2,187 acres): the location of the plant’s former manufacturing area. In 1987, EPA placed the site on the NPL. After the Army, EPA and ADEM determined that ground water in Area A was not contaminated, the U.S. Department of Defense, or DoD, sold a clean portion of the Area A property to private property owners in 1991. The rest of the GSA Area remained under federal government control. Area A is currently used for occasional logging and as a wildlife preserve. The Army, EPA and ADEM have been working together since the 1990s to clean up Area A and Area B soils. In 2003, DoD transferred Area B to the City of Childersburg to use for several purposes, including industrial, commercial and recreational land uses and wildlife habitat. The city plans to develop Area B into an industrial park while investigation of contaminated ground water on the property is ongoing.
6 |
People living within a 1 mile radius |
$46,677 |
Average Income |
2 |
Occupied homes |
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