PORT SALERNO — Dee Dee Hawken still remembers driving along Cove Road years ago, when the Solitron Microwave plant stood far from the street behind a thick forest of trees.

Janet Kozan remembers when she and her business partner looked to buy the 20-acre site in 2003 as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials were cleaning soil and groundwater on the site contaminated with vinyl chloride and related products.

She was taking a chance, she said, but she and her partner were looking to the future in hopes of one day redeveloping the site for commercial use.

“There were several times during that year that I wanted to back out of the deal, but I’m glad we didn’t,” she said.

Kozan and Hawken on Wednesday were at the site of the former plant, which is now the Port Salerno Industrial Park Complex, as EPA Superfund redevelopment coordinators from around the country awarded her the region’s Excellence in Site Reuse Award.

The complex is one of about 400 polluted Superfund sites nationwide that have been cleaned and put back into productive use through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s redevelopment program. (more…)