
DATE: Wednesday, May 7, 1997                TAG: 9705070456

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   99 lines

RELOCATED RESIDENTS COPE WITH CLEANUP 24 FAMILIES MOVE TO MOTEL AND HARBOR TOWER AS LEAD CLEANUP ON ABEX SITE BEGINS IN PORTSMOUTH.

The last of two dozen families left their homes Tuesday in the Washington Park public housing apartments so work to clean up lead contamination at the nearby Abex foundry site can continue.

They could be living in motel rooms and other apartments for as long as two months. And while many of the family members were upbeat about the relocation, not all of them saw it as an adventure - except the children.

``I think it might be fun,'' said 15-year-old Ashawan Robertson, standing with a group of teen-agers on the balcony at the Travelers Inn motel on Effingham Street near the Naval Medical Center main gate. As for eating out three meals a day, the Wilson High School student said he wasn't concerned. He started the adventure Monday night with Chinese food.

``We're relaxing,'' said Carlos Cobb, a 16-year-old Cradock Middle School student. ``It's like a dream come true, like having your own apartment.''

The 24 families will stay at the motel, and a few older residents will stay in the Harbor Tower apartment building on the waterfront in Olde Towne during the site cleanup.

The cleanup of the old Abex foundry site has been planned and discussed since 1988, when the area was declared a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. After years of wrangling, Abex and EPA reached an agreement on a cleanup plan in January 1996.

Work on the site is moving along on schedule, EPA officials say. Three single-family homes have been demolished over the past week. Asbestos has been removed from the factory area, and workers are cleaning up lead and other contaminants within the building.

The big factory building is scheduled to come down the first of next week. After the structure is razed, a soil-treatment facility will be built on the site. The tons of dirt that will be removed must be cleaned of contaminants before it is removed for disposal.

Abex will spend about $21 million to demolish the abandoned plant and remove contaminated soil from a 700-foot ring around the abandoned property. That includes the relocation costs.

Late Tuesday afternoon, after she worked all day as a teaching assistant at Highland Biltmore Elementary School, Delores Randall was about to move to a furnished apartment in Harbor Tower.

``I don't mind this at all,'' she said. ``I'm so glad we finally are getting the cleanup done. Of course, I'm one person, so I can manage.''

It wasn't easy to decide what to take for five to eight weeks away from home, Randall said. ``With the weather like it is, I took both winter and summer clothes.'' And suddenly she remembered something. She went back inside to find her ironing board.

As soon as Randall drove away to her temporary home, workers for Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority moved to her apartment to cover all the doors and windows, first with plastic and then with plywood. They'd been going through the same ritual for two days, as each tenant left. By Tuesday evening, all 24 vacated units were secured.

Relocated residents will receive a daily stipend for food and other costs while they are away from home. Each adult will get about $30 a day for food, and each child will get a percentage of that amount, PRHA officials said.

Among the less-upbeat residents on this moving day was Collette DeLoatch, a nine-year resident of Washington Park and mother of three.

``Being out of your own household is an inconvenience and can be tiresome,'' she said Tuesday. ``But we'll try to make it as homey as possible.''

The DeLoatch family has three rooms to match the three bedrooms in their apartment: one for 20-year-old Jermael DeLoatch, one for his teen-age sister and one for Collette DeLoatch and her 6-year-old son, who has asthma and will stay in the room with her.

``They're trying to do right by us, I think,'' Jermael DeLoatch said.

Collette DeLoatch said she will break the monotony of eating in restaurants by going to her mother's home here. ``That way, we can get a little home cooking.''

Thirty-five rooms, about half the space at the Travelers Inn, are occupied by the Washington Park residents, and eight units in Harbor Tower.

``We are looking after their every need,'' motel Manager Murty Lolla said Tuesday. ``We are treating them like we treat all our guests.'' That includes room cleanup and use of a swimming pool.

``The motel's pretty decent,'' said Barbara Bishop, mother of two teen-agers. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

AN ADVENTURE OR INCONVENIENCE?

BILL TIERNAN photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Carolyn Smith, center, works out details of her family's temporary

move from their Green Street home to an apartment in Harbor Tower.

She talks with a technical consultant and a lawyer, both with Abex.

Curtis Shannon, right, with the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing

Authority, cuts plastic to seal windows and doors of a building next

to the Abex factory in Washington Park.

BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot

Michael Gordon and Ira Davis of the Portsmouth Redevelopment and

Housing Authority mount a cherry-picker to reach the second story of