Freedom Industries is considering trying to enter West Virginias voluntary industrial site remediation program to help ease the cleanup of its Elk River facility, where a chemical leak in January contaminated the drinking-water supply for hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and the surrounding region.

Representatives from Freedom met last week with state Department of Environmental Protection officials to discuss whether the companys Etowah Terminal is eligible for the DEPs Voluntary Remediation Program, a move that could result in Freedom having to meet less-stringent contamination standards than under existing DEP enforcement orders.

No decisions were made, and Freedom has not yet submitted a formal application for the program, officials from the company and the DEP said.

Freedoms eligibility for the program could be tricky, though, because of the companys ongoing bankruptcy proceedings and because there are no existing cleanup standards for Crude MCHM, the main chemical involved in the Jan. 9 leak into the Elk.

DEP officials emphasized that discussions about Freedom applying for voluntary remediation status were preliminary and that the program would not change agency Secretary Randy Huffmans promise that the Freedom site will be remediated until there is a 100-percent certainty that the risk of this stuff getting back in the water has been eliminated, not just minimized.

They will still have to show that they are not going to have chemicals going into the Elk River, said Patty Hickman, interim director of the DEPs Division of Land Restoration, which runs the voluntary industrial site cleanup program.

Mark Welch, Freedoms chief restructuring officer, said the company is still considering options but that the voluntary program could benefit Freedom because the company and the DEP would agree to enter into the plan and agree to the standards, rather than having cleanup details mandated by the state.

On Thursday, Freedom received approval from the Charleston Sanitary Board to send potentially contaminated stormwater gathered at the Elk River site in recent months to Charlestons sewage facility, where it would be treated and discharged into the Kanawha River. Freedom has said the boards operation can properly treat the runoff and save the company significant money over sending the stormwater to out-of-state treatment and disposal sites.

Last week, Freedom moved temporary chemical storage tanks onto the site for stormwater thats collected in the future, so that the remaining four tanks can be dismantled. Work tearing down those tanks is scheduled to begin around Sept. 22, Welch said.

So far, DEP officials havent seen any results of soil samples from the Freedom site and are still waiting for the company to submit an updated remediation plan for the facility.

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Freedom eyes DEP's voluntary cleanup program