The demolition and cleanup of a long since closed refinery and tank farm on the banks of the Neches River in Port Neches, TX will soon be nothing but a memory.

Work to remove the facilities and tanks began in March and Chip Volz, of J.D. Consulting, said more than 90 percent of the project is complete and they expect to be finished in early September.

Volz said J.D. Consulting was contracted separately with the city as project engineers of the project and has been working with Compass Environmental Inc., a decontamination and demolition company.

He said this project has been done in seven phases, beginning with tank demolition and soil cleanup.

The dismantling of the refining area had also been included in the phases of the project with and included the 80-foot tall heater, which was scheduled to come down Monday. The pipes that ran under the metal walkway, which extends onto the river, have been taken up along with the old wooden dock that was no longer usable and all under ground pipelines are currently being pulled up.

Robert Perritt, of CBH Marine Services Inc. in Orange, who was responsible for the work on the docks said they started May 26 and brought in divers to remove debris off the bottom of the river.

"We've pulled all kinds of things out, which includes treated pillions, old electrical switches and lights and 10 to 12 inch pipes," he said.

The property was once the site of 11 refining tanks, in which all but one have been completely demolished.

Volz said as many as 47 truckloads of scrap metal and concrete have been removed from the site in a day.

"We've had 356 truckloads of concrete alone hauled out of here. We've also had remove 109,920 gallons of oil and gasoline from the site as well," he said.
City officials said the cleanup has been progressing steadily despite set backs caused by weather and contamination issues that had to be addressed.

"We had seven areas of soil contamination and two of those have been labeled 'clean closed,' which means the contaminated soil from those areas have been removed. Soil samples have also been collected to verify this," he said.

He added the samples are sent to the State and if the soil meet environmental standards, then they issue a certificate to the city for unrestricted future use of the property. It takes about 60 days for the certificate to be issued if everything goes well.

The 35-acre tract of land, referred to as "Tract 2" by the city, was purchased in July of last year from TransGlobal Solutions for $5 million. It had previously been used as a small refinery and a terminal by Erickson refining before it was closed in the 1980s.The facility was later acquired by the city and later it sold to TransGlobal Solutions.

The cleanup effort is part of the city's plan to develop land along the riverfront.

City officials began acquiring land in 2001 for the project. In 2004, officials announced their intent to move forward with plans to develop riverfront property.

In addition to the former Trans Global property, land acquired for the project includes 25 along the Neches River adjacent to Port Neches Park and the former Coastal Marine property, which is 20-acres, acquired in 2001.