Audio clip
Bill Ring
Six of eight Alton Park areas assessed through a federal grant have environmental conditions that make them candidates for a more-thorough study process to look at potential contamination, an engineer said Monday night.
The six areas have a variety of former and current uses, including a vacant junior high school, recreational spots and automobile repair shops, according to a Phase I brownfields assessment presentation at Calvin Donaldson Elementary School by contractor Dallas Whitmill of Aquaterra Engineering.
Yuen Lee with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency said the next step in the three-year project is to select sites for the Phase II environmental assessment. She said this part of the process will be held in conjunction with updating the Alton Park Master Plan. A public meeting is expected in May.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the city a $200,000 brownfields grant in 2006, and Ms. Lee said officials are about halfway through the process. Stakeholders in Alton Park hope that some of these sites eventually can be cleaned up and used for new development.
“If the interest is totally going to the south end of the city, I think it’s incumbent upon (city officials) to make this attractive for prospective … holdings,” developer Bill Ring, who has properties in the Alton Park area, said after the meeting.
Ms. Lee said she hopes Phase II assessments are completed by the fall. This phase includes sampling for potential pollutants, according to the EPA Web site.
“Hopefully we will have the money to do all six (areas),” Ms. Lee said during the meeting.
One of the six areas has been the site of illegal dumping, another contains the 36th Street landfill and yet another contains foundry sand and slag, said Mr. Whitmill, an environmental engineer.
Phase I cost about $15,000, according to officials with Aquaterra Engineering.
During the presentation, Milton Jackson, who has lived in Alton Park for 52 years, pointed out other spots where he said there is contamination.
“Some areas (engineers) need to recap again,” Mr. Jackson, 72, said after the meeting. “Where I know about some areas out here, they might be overlooking those areas.”
