Mobile City Council to consider tax break for $100 million radioactive waste cleanup

By Margaret Kates | mkates@al.com

The Mobile City Council is considering a tax abatement for cleanup of a more than 700-acre site on Rangeline Road in Theodore that is contaminated with radioactive waste.

This week, the city council will consider an application from the Greenfield Environmental Multistate Trust to abate non-educational property and sales taxes for the cleanup, in the hopes that the site can be cleaned up and used again.

“This is an excellent opportunity for the City of Mobile to support a major investment into a prime piece of industrial property that is currently sitting vacant and unused,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said. “This project will support dozens of temporary construction jobs, clean up a longstanding environmental hazard, and put a valuable piece of property back into production.”

The Rangeline Road site was once a chemical processing plant that produced synthetic rutile, which was eventually processed into titanium dioxide to be used in paint pigment, according to Alabama Department of Environmental Management records. It was shuttered in 2003.

Initially, the site was used as a place to store ammunition during World War II and the Korean War. It wasn’t until 1977 that the plant was used for chemical processing.

Now, 56 contiguous acres of “impoundments” of iron oxide waste on the 714-acre site will need to be cleaned up from the days of production, according to Josh Patterson, program manager with the trust. The waste is radioactive, according to the trust website, and will be permanently covered and capped.

The site is several miles away from residences, and impacts to the groundwater from contamination have been addressed, according to Lynn Battle, a spokesperson for ADEM. An on-site wastewater treatment plant treats water before it is discharged into the Theodore Industrial Canal. The site is around six miles from Theodore High School.

City of Mobile documents indicate that the cleanup cost is expected to be around $95 million. However, Patterson said the trust estimates the cleanup will cost more than $100 million.

In total, Patterson said, the trust will spend around $150 million on the site, between assessment and cleanup costs.

Because the cleanup is part of ADEM’s Brownfields Redevelopment and Voluntary Cleanup Program, the trust is able to receive tax abatements from the state Department of Revenue.

The Mobile County Commission approved the tax abatement (tax break) agreement. The Mobile City Council is expected to approve the agreement at its meeting Tuesday. The Alabama Department of Revenue will also need to approve the abatements.

In total, the projected value of the proposed tax breaks is around $2.4 million, Jason Johnson, a spokesperson for the city of Mobile, said. The city of Mobile’s portion totals around $1.7 million.

However, Patterson said the actual value of the abatements has dropped since they were first applied for in January of this year. Since the trust applied, it has spent a significant amount of money on construction materials and paid taxes on those materials. As a result, the abatements’ value will be lower if they are approved and go into effect, he said.

Ultimately, the goal is to remediate the site so it can be used for industrial development again, Mobile City Councilmember Ben Reynolds said. The site is in an ideal location, with close proximity to the Theodore Industrial Canal, Interstate 10 and a rail line.

Combined with the growth of the Port of Mobile’s container terminal, Reynolds said he thinks the parcel will be in high demand once it’s available.

The tax break is meant to encourage redevelopment of the site. When the cleanup is completed, more than 500 acres of the site will be usable for heavy industrial use, Johnson said. Cleanup of the site began in 2023 and is expected to last for around two or three years, according to city records.

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