A once-contaminated swath of land being donated to the city could become an impound lot serving a proposed police station in the old Farmer's Market, Mayor Ron Littlefield says.
The mayor is recommending that the City Council accept the land donation from owner J.H. Holding Co. even though ownership could cost the city about $10,000 a year indefinitely because of environmental monitoring requirements.
The potential cost worries some council members, but Littlefield believes the seven-acre site has "been cleaned up to a level that is usable" and that monitoring eventually will no longer be necessary.
"It's not going to be forever," he said.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation agrees, provided that test results from the site don't worsen.
Even so, council members reached Friday said the annual recurring costs worry them. Councilwoman Deborah Scott said she is pleased there is at least a plan for putting an impound lot at the site.
Councilman Peter Murphy said two questions popped in his head right away.
TIMELINELate 1800s to 1920: Used as a coal gasification plant site for Chattanooga Gas Co.1972: Illinois-based Jupiter Industries acquires the property from Chattanooga Gas Co.1988: Pollution found at the site after Jupiter tries to sell to Atlanta Gas & Light1990s: Remediation begins2008-09: Test results show that remaining contaminants pose no risk to human health for commercial or industrial use2010: J.H. Holding Co. offers to donate the land to the citySource: J.H. Holding Co.BY THE NUMBERS* $1.67 million: Total environmental remediation costs incurred by Jupiter Industries* 6.99: Total acreage of property going to the city* 4.65: Acres remediated by J.H. Holding Co. since the 1990sSource: J.H. Holding Co.
"The big question will be, does paving it over reduce the annual cost?" he asked. "The other question is, do we need an impound lot there?"
The council is expected to discuss the proposed impound lot during committee meetings Tuesday and vote on the donation the following week.
Littlefield said Friday that environmental problems at the site are well known and noted that other city-owned properties -- the site of the Electric Power Board, for example -- are undergoing monitoring.
He said the city would have to pay for monitoring at the J.H. Holding site "until the state says you don't have to pay anymore."
Meg Lockhart, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, said Friday that could be sooner rather than later. She said a series of tests has been conducted at the site since 2008, and the results showed that the remaining contaminants pose no risk to human health for commercial or industrial use.
"No further monitoring will be required at the site and all monitoring wells will be properly decommissioned in the near future, provided that the sampling results remain at the same or at lower levels," she said.
SITE HISTORY
The land that Illinois-based J.H. Holdings wants to donate consists of two parcels off 11th Street. The parcel fronting 11th Street is a grassy field with a lone tree in the middle and a "For Sale" sign out front. The second parcel, in back, is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.
From the late 1800s to about 1920, Chattanooga Gas Co. ran a gasification plant at the site, turning coal into gas, according to state records and J.H. Holding Co.
George Murphy, president of Jupiter Industries Inc., said his company purchased the land from Chattanooga Gas Co. in 1972.
The company tried selling the property in 1988 to Atlanta Gas & Light, he said. During the course of the sale, an environmental study found that the land was contaminated.
Murphy said the company created J.H. Holding Co. to retain the property. The company began remediating the property in the 1990s and has spent more than $1.6 million to clean it up, he said.
WHY DONATE?
Murphy said Friday that the company is dissolving and getting rid of all of its assets.
Joe Conner, attorney for J.H. Holding Co., said the land donation would be a "win-win" for the city and his client. For the most part, there are many brownfields across Chattanooga, he said -- some of them not even known.
"At the end of the day, I'd rather have something like this than something I don't know what's on it," he said.
Littlefield said the area would be ideal for the impound lot. He said in the next two years the city expects to start building a police precinct in the old Farmer's Market. Over the next few months, construction will begin on a new Homeless Health Care Center.
He said the city hopes to do a streetscape on the portion of 11th Street in front of the Farmer's Market in the next 12 to 18 months.
In the end, 11th Street will be changed, he said.
"It will look like a street appropriate for a street that City Hall sits on," he said.