Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 2, 1995 TAG: 9510020078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FRONT ROYAL LENGTH: Medium
The platinum - 4,612 troy ounces salvaged from an industrial fibers plant shut down six years ago - is stuffed inside a beat-up locker wedged into a Warren County jail cell.
Once Front Royal's biggest employer with about 1,300 workers, the Avtex Fibers plant was forced to close by the state in late 1989 for polluting the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The plant produced rayon yarn used by the defense and space industries.
The state has $2 million worth of fines pending against Avtex and so claims the platinum, a state official said. The Warren County Sheriff's Department confiscated the precious metal fittings and was preparing to auction them to pay the fines when a lawsuit brought it all to a grinding halt. That was five years ago.
The suit was filed by an Avtex trustee in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Philadelphia, where Avtex has its headquarters. The trustee claims the platinum. So do a half-dozen insurance companies that Avtex owes money. So does the Environmental Protection Agency, which has spent more than $17 million cleaning up the site. One state official said no settlement is in sight.
Though platinum's mostly thought of as a precious metal, one of the scarcest on earth, its properties make it ideal for industrial use. Platinum is corrosion resistant and has a high melting point.
Avtex found those properties desirable, despite platinum's high price. The company used it to make jet nozzles - which look like bright, silver thimbles - to spin out rayon. The platinum thimbles have microscopic holes punched in them to extrude the rayon.
Deputies took an inventory of the platinum and even melted about 10 of the jets to have the metal assayed, Warren County Deputy Kent Printz said. The jets turned out to be 90 percent platinum and 10 percent rhodium, another scarce metal that is added to make the platinum harder. At about $425 a troy ounce, that means the 60,696 jets being stored in the jail are worth about $1.8 million.
The romance of the treasure has long ago worn away for Warren deputies. To them the metal is just taking up scarce jail space. ``All we're getting out of this is a hard time and headaches,'' Printz said.
by CNB