By Dan Klepal
Enquirer staff writer

LOWER PRICE HILL - A senior special agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said 20 federal agents from around the country planned to begin inspecting the smoldering pile at Queen City Barrel Co. today.

"The objective is to bring in all of the experts that might be needed," said Patrick Berarducci, a senior special agent and spokesman for the Cleveland office of the ATF.

Berarducci said he expects the federal investigators, many of them experts in explosives, chemicals and electrical fires, to stay at least a week.

Federal agents from offices in cities such as Minneapolis and Dallas will be converging on the Queen City Barrel site at Evans and South streets. Local ATF agents have been on the scene of the fire since the night the warehouse burned.

They will collect evidence, take photographs and video of the scene and interview any witnesses to try to determine the cause of the blaze.

Craig Feltner, vice president of Queen City Barrel Co., said over the weekend that the massive fire that leveled the company's warehouse shouldn't scuttle a $1.2 million deal to sell the warehouse and about 12 acres around it to the city of Cincinnati.

City officials received a grant to buy and redevelop the land, and had been in negotiations with the company for months.

"This shouldn't have any impact on it, and could further the city's approach to do something else with that area," Feltner said.

City officials were not available for comment. But officials with the state and federal Environmental Protection Agencies have said the owner of the property likely will be responsible for cleanup costs related to hazardous chemical residue in the 40,000 to 50,000 barrels being stored in the warehouse at the time of the fire. It is unclear how much that cleanup will cost.

The city had delivered to Queen City Barrel officials a revised contract for the sale of the properties just hours before the fire started.

Regardless of the sale, Feltner said Queen City will remain a resident of this neighborhood for years to come.

"The future of our company is as strong as it's ever been," Feltner said. "Our plans are to still have a presence somewhere in the area. We plan to keep our corporate headquarters here, and to keep some type of more contained operation similar to what we had down there, supplying our Columbus and Louisville operations."

Mostly empty barrels were held in the Queen City Barrel's warehouse until they could be shipped to Columbus or Louisville, where the barrels are cleaned and refurbished.

Feltner said the next warehouse operation in Lower Price Hill will be much smaller.

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Reporter Reid Forgrave contributed. E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com