DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997             TAG: 9704230457

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   34 lines

$21 MILLION CLEANUP IS BEGUN AT THE OLD ABEX FOUNDRY SITE

After years of talk and negotiation, the $21 million cleanup of the old Abex Foundry site adjacent to the Washington Park public housing neighborhood has begun.

On Tuesday, contractors began removing asbestos from five houses on Seventh Street that will be torn down.

Windows and doors of the old foundry building were sealed in preparation for removing asbestos before that building also is leveled.

The work is the beginning of a project that will clean the area of lead and other contaminants left behind when Abex closed in 1978. The Environmental Protection Agency declared the area a Superfund site in 1988.

Residents of 24 public housing units immediately adjacent to the factory site will be relocated for five to six weeks during the cleanup. Lisa Brown of the regional EPA office in Philadelphia said the agency will begin moving families to Travelers Inn on Effingham Street and older persons to Harbor Tower on the waterfront May 5.

``Because many are families, it may take more than one day to accomplish the move,'' she said.

Several trailers have been set up inside the fenced area around the foundry as a headquarters for the contractors and for the EPA project manager, Ron Davis.

On Tuesday, a trailer office for EPA community involvement representatives was being placed on Effingham Street next to the Washington Park community center.

``This community relations trailer is very unusual,'' Davis said. ``In fact, I don't know if we've ever had one before.''

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