ENVIRONMENT

Georgia's largest ever brownfield cleanup ends. Savannah site poised for industrial growth

Marisa Mecke
Savannah Morning News
Dulany Industries Inc. and SeaPoint Industrial Terminal Complex Cleantech Campus @SeaPoint is a technology incubator. The campus will serve as a hub for companies, organizations, and higher educational institutions that are focused on clean technologies.

Tucked away off President's Street on the east end of Savannah, a once-polluted site now called the SeaPoint Industrial Terminal Complex is growing.

After a 13-year process, Dulany Industries Inc. has finished the largest-by-area brownfield cleanup in Georgia history, both ahead of schedule and under budget.  The 755-acre property was formerly home to American Cyanamid, then Kerr-McGee, Kemira and lastly Tronox, which closed and declared bankruptcy in 2009. The facility had been used since the 1950s to process titanium dioxide, a whitening chemical used in products like toothpaste and foods. 

The site was a brownfield, which the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines as a property that has or may have contaminants that complicate expansion or redevelopment. The EPA and Georgia Environmental Protection Division both have funding opportunities to promote businesses to remove pollution and make these sites useable again, which Dulany Industries took advantage of at SeaPoint. 

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Dulany Industries purchased the almost 1,600-acre property in 2017 and sketched out a six-year plan for how to conduct the cleanup. The plan was approved by the Georgia EPD in consultation with the EPA. The company deeded 728 acres to the state for marshland protection and as additional buffer between the complex and Old Fort Jackson. The terminal is 

The company's involvement with the land goes back farther than 2017, though. In 2013 Dulany Industries was selected to oversee the cleanup, kicking off a four-year environmental study to determine the extent of the site's pollution.

Bill Anderson, an environmental engineer with Terracon Consultants, said the cleanup included 84 distinct work elements – areas or items in need of cleaning or fixing – such as drying out and closing off old wastewater ponds, and taking out polluted soil and cleaning the marsh. Though contaminated, Anderson said the pollution didn't pose a large health hazard. 

Carmen Bergman and Bill Anderson stand on a grassy field that used to be wastewater retention ponds. Now that they have been dried and capped-off, future developers can build on top of the land.

"There were different areas that the past operations impacted the marsh and the ecosystem," Anderson said. "We were able to go in and delineate those areas of contamination, and then perform remediation to restore back to its natural condition."

Using local contractors, the team was able to multi-task and get the job done quickly, hitting their goal far ahead of schedule. 

“The former Tronox Pigments facility is an example of what can be accomplished when the parties involved have a shared vision and commitment to achieve it,” noted Sara Lips, director of Communications and Community Engagement at EPD, in a news release. 

Land at the SeaPoint Industrial Terminal Complex which has been cleaned. This field used to house two large wastewater retention ponds.

The SeaPoint remediation process cost $38 million. While that price tag might seem high, Dulany Industries spokesperson Carmen Bergman said this was under budget. Remaining money will be used for cleanups at other sites throughout the country. 

Bergman said Dulany Industries is looking to attract tenants who value sustainability. The cleaned site's first tenant NANTRenewables, which makes a bioplastic material used in finished products, moved into the complex in 2021. Bergman pointed to a University of Georgia study which estimated that more than 1,700 high-wage jobs will be available at the complex and generate an estimated annual economic impact of nearly $1 billion.

Now that the remediation is complete, Bergman said the next step is to ensure tenants act as good stewards to the property and don't re-contaminate the area. 

Marisa Mecke is an environmental journalist. She can be reached at mmecke@gannett.com or by phone at (912) 328-4411.