A second company has expressed a strong interest in purchasing the defunct and polluted Farmland Industries fertilizer plant east of Lawrence.

Leaders with St. Louis-based Environmental Liability Transfer Inc. said today they were interested in buying the site to turn it into a mixed used development that would include multi-family residential units, retail uses and an industrial park.

And they don’t plan on letting the 467-acre site – which is just west of the East Hills Business Park – go without a fight. The property, because it is wrapped up in the bankruptcy proceedings of Farmland Industries, must be sold at public auction.

“We’ll be happy to go toe-to-toe at an auction,” said Randy Jostes, president and CEO of the privately owned company that specializes in cleaning up and redeveloping environmentally-troubled properties.

The interest from Environmental Liability Transfer comes one day after TRC Companies Inc., a Connecticut based company that specializes in cleaning up sites, said it was planning to make a formal offer for the property. That offer likely would trigger a public auction.

Members of the county and city commissions have said they are opposed to the property becoming anything other than an industrial development.

But leaders with Environmental Liability Transfer said they were willing to take their chances that they could clean the property so well that city and county officials would agree to allow nonindustrial uses at the site.

For more on the story watch 6News tonight at 6 p.m. and pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal-World.

– Staff writer Chad Lawhorn can be reached at 832-6362.