BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Melissa Bowlin and John Ludwig inventory property at Fluor Daniel Fernald Inc. office in Union Twp.
(Gary Landers photo)
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FOR SALE: "K commodity,' "gould,' energy kits, ground joints and one long polypropylene nipple. Desks, chairs, computer parts, pipes and cameras also among a wide assortment of surplus goods from the former Fernald uranium processing plant. Radiation-free and available cheap.
Such ads may become commonplace at Fernald, where demolition and disposition are daily tasks. With 183 buildings and structures due to be emptied and torn down, anything that isn't contaminated or buried will one day be up for grabs.
But before any goods are made available to the public, they will be sold to those in the know. Or at least, those who make contact with the Fernald Community Reuse Organization (CRO), a group of union, civic and Fluor Daniel representatives charged with using Fernald's resources for the economic benefit of Greater Cincinnati.
CRO has dibs on all of the surplus merchandise, says Hontas Bailey, Fluor Daniel Fernald property control and disposition manager. Here's how it works:
Once the Department of Energy determines that a piece of equipment cannot be used anywhere on the Fernald site, the reuse organization and other Department of Energy sites nationwide can choose what they want. Remaining items are offered to other federal agencies, passed out as grants or donations and, finally, auctioned or sold to the public.
The Community Reuse Organization has the option to sell the goods to local governments, businesses and developers -- anyone who can boost the local economy or provide jobs for displaced Fernald workers.
Since the government already paid for the items, used them and declared them surplus, buyers will virtually set their own price. According to a formula drafted by the Ohio field office of the Department of Energy, the price can bereduced in stages by 75 percent of "fair market value."
If the CRO has only one buyer for a particular item, that buyer becomes the entire market, Ms. Bailey said. She estimated that most items will sell for 8 percent of the original book value.
"I think the Ohio field office decided to make this beneficial to the local communities," she said.
Of course, there is a catch.
Faced with a thick printout of available goods -- and the knowledge that the list changes and gets bigger virtually every day -- the CRO must choose which items it wants to set aside for sale. And once it does so, it must pay for them and take possession in about 60 days.
"Of all that equipment, how do we know what people want?" consultant Curt Paddock told the CRO Land Reuse, Equipment and Materials Committee.
The committee will present those questions to the full CRO Aug. 4. Once the group decides how to broker the warehouse full of electronics, scientific equipment, coveralls and safety gear -- and whether it wants to handle the sales at all -- information on how to make a deal will be published.
The organization is virtually unlimited in determining who can buy the goods. One CRO committee member suggested that municipalities might bid for firefighting equipment that will eventually become surplus. Another wanted to make the list of items available to a small company under construction near Fernald.
Mr. Paddock said that the CRO -- made up of community members and Fernald worker representatives -- lacks the money, time and space to warehouse, advertise and purchase the goods.
He suggested requiring deposits to discourage potential buyers from backing out after agreeing to buy items.
"There is this potential that I want us to be aware of, that this could go south," Mr. Paddock said.
Committee Treasurer Sharon Cornwell said the CRO could poll community members and developers to determine what equipment they would like to buy. The Fernald CRO, like others operating at DOE cleanup sites around the country, could charge a fee for brokering the sale. The money would be put back into other CRO projects, or used to employ a staff member to work on buying and selling Fernald goods.
Her proposal will be presented to the full CRO at its August meeting. "I think we have a decision to make," Mr. Paddock said. "Do we want to be in the property disposition business, or not?"
