Lawrence, Kan.-The Farmland Industries Inc. nitrogen plant site idle since the company went bankrupt in 2003 has a possible buyer who claims to be seriously interested and has put up nearly $1 million to prove it, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Capitana Redevelopment Group, an Overland Park-based group led by an insurance attorney, has purchased from creditors a legal interest in the approximately $10 million trust fund set aside to clean up the environmentally blighted, 467-acre tract on the east edge of Lawrence. Rick Bean, chief of the KDHE remedial section, told Green Markets he couldn’t comment on Capitana’s role in the property, but that the investors have acquired the residual beneficiary’s interest in the fund. Presumably they would collect what’s left over after the cleanup is completed. But the state has first say about who acquires the property because of what Bean describes as serious environmental problems from years of fertilizer operations, which have left nitrogen and ammonia contamination in the soil and the groundwater. “What we’re doing as the trustee is getting the site cleaned up, and the residual beneficiary doesn’t have a say in this. As the primary beneficiary we set the ground rules for selling the property.” He said he wasn’t sure about how much Capitana has put up, but thought it was a little over $900,000. Actually Capitana isn’t the only interested party since the city submitted a bid for the property in January, and KDHE is said to be in favor of such an arrangement because of the priorities the state is putting on the cleanup. Capitana has said it will work closely with the city, which is interested in converting the property into a business park, and the interests of the two could clash. “We’re absolutely interested in the property,” Aaron Bowers, who is leading the investment group, told the local press. “Capitana’s goal is to return this property to productive use.”
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain