LEXINGTON
A deed restriction has put a crimp in Davidson County's plans to use the former Duracell plant as a site for a new jail.
"It doesn't totally eliminate it, but it does put a cloud on the property that we don't want to deal with," Larry Potts, a Davidson County commissioner, said yesterday.
The county's jail committee had recommended the site, and two weeks ago county commissioners voted to make the Duracell plant the preferred site for the jail.
But Tuesday night, the commissioners changed their minds during a closed session after learning about the deed restriction, and they referred the matter back to the jail committee. The deed restriction prohibits the site from being used for "residential purposes," and there was some question whether the jail would be considered a residential use.
The plant has been a source of controversy for years because of contamination on the site. In 1981, state environmental regulators discovered that mercury had been contaminating the land around the plant since the 1960s and had leaked into nearby Abbotts Creek, a tributary of High Rock Lake. The state banned the eating of fish from the lake for 10 years.
Duracell reached an agreement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 to deal with the contamination, and the EPA continues to monitor the site.
County officials had been considering using an 82,500-square-foot building on the property for the new jail.
The building, known as Plant No. 3, was once Ames Department Store before Duracell bought it in the 1970s and used it for storage and shipping, according to an EPA five-year review of the site done in 2007.
The building is now owned by Tower Investments Inc., a California real-estate investment group.
The company recently told the county about the deed restrictions on the property.
The restrictions were placed on the property in 2002 through an agreement between the Gillette Co., the former owner; the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources; and the EPA.
Commissioner Billy Joe Kep-ley also brought up some concerns during the open portion of Tuesday's meeting. He and Commissioner Cathy Dunn had voted against making the Duracell plant the preferred site for the jail, citing environmental concerns.
Kepley said yesterday that the jail is only about 400 feet from an old landfill that the city of Lexington once operated. The jail is also near a former asphalt plant.
Earlier, he had told commissioners that he had received calls from former Duracell employees telling him that mercury had been dumped near Plant No. 3.
Most of the contamination is near Plant No. 1 and former Plant No. 2, which was demolished, according to Ware Bonsall Architects in Charlotte. A geological ridge goes through the property that seems to keep the contaminated groundwater from Plant No. 3, the company said. But a small amount of contaminated groundwater was found at Plant No. 3 in samples taken three years ago.
Commissioners were considering doing additional environmental testing on the site.
The jail committee had considered five sites and narrowed that down to two -- the Duracell plant and the existing jail on West Center Street, which would have been expanded.
Sheriff David Grice opposes the downtown site.
"It limits our ability to expand in the future," Grice said. "The idea was not to do this every 10 years."
And commissioners thought that it would cost too much to acquire the 30 properties needed for the expansion at the existing jail.
"I'm not interested in condemning anyone's house for a jail," Potts said.
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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