Staff Photo by Tim Barber/Chattanooga Times Free Press
In the shadow of Lookout Mountain, this locked gate faces Wilson Road near 51st Street in Piney Woods.The clock is ticking on a state plan to adopt a "final remedy" plan from the now-defunct Velsicol Chemical Co.
But local residents say the plan - a permit modification request being suggested by Velsicol and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation regulators - isn't really a remedy, and it isn't what they want for a polluted site in their community.
"This is not a cleanup plan," said Dr. Elenora Woods, a Chattanooga dentist who grew up in Alton Park. "This is putting out some dirt and grass seed and a chain-link fence. This is not what the community wants."
Milton Jackson, the president of the community environmental group, STOP Toxic Pollution, is not content with a planned state decision to put an 18-inch cap of clean soil on most of the 36-acre former plant site where chemicals for pesticides, herbicides and cosmetic and health products were made.
"I'm asking EPA and the ATSDR (the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) to look at this," said Jackson, after hearing a former Velsicol union president talk about 27 cancer deaths among workers who were there in 1980.
"They've said they will meet with me next week," said Jackson, whose grass-roots group was instrumental more than a decade ago in getting help from those agencies to declare Chattanooga Creek a federal Superfund site.
Velsicol's senior environmental projects manager, Gary Hermann, acknowledged last week in a community meeting that the plan isn't designed to completely clean up the site where the plant operated for 44 years.
"Our objective is to make it safe and return it to industrial use and provide jobs for the area," he said. If a new industry expresses interest in the site, its leadership can decide how much more work is needed there, he said.
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation regulators and Velsicol are proposing to modify Velsicol's hazardous waste permit.
According to a fact sheet handed out at the meeting, the modification is intended to "define the final corrective action requirements" for the site.
TO COMMENTState officials said they will take written comments on the "final remedy" proposal until 4:30 p.m. CST Thursday.Written comments must be mailed to Roger Donovan, Division of Solid Waste Management, TDEC, 5th Floor, L&C Tower, 401 Church St., Nashville, TN 37243-1535 (615-532-0864)E-mailed comments must be addressed to Roger.Donovan@tn.gov.Source: Tennessee Department of Environment and ConservationWHAT'S DONE?Velsicol's Gary Hermann said the company already has:Hauled away 24 million pounds of material from the plant site.Cleared 33 solid waste sites on the 36 acres where Velsicol operated and designated them in need of "no further action."Taken more than 550 groundwater samples and determined the underground water there is contaminated.Built a groundwater contamination catchment system at the Piney Woods Spring. Water and contaminants caught there have been sent to the Chattanooga sewer system for treatment since 1999.Source: Velsicol
Bankruptcy and complications
But residents say Velsicol's future and in turn, its ability to take part in any eventual fix, seems questionable.
In January 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Justice Department announced a settlement with the American International Specialty Lines Insurance Co. The agreement obtained $42.5 million for environmental investigation and cleanup at seven former Velsicol sites -- including the South Chattanooga plant site's Residue Hill, a dome-shaped dump capped and regulated by the state for decades.
An American International Specialty insurance policy had been issued to Fruit of the Loom, which with related company NWI Land Management Corp. bought out Velsicol in 1986. But in 1999, Fruit of the Loom and NWI went bankrupt and immediately stopped indemnifying Velsicol.
The Velsicol plant at one time employed about 200 workers. Its earlier owner, Chattanooga Coke and Chemical Co., was the primary source of coal tar found in Chattanooga Creek, according to federal and state regulators
Hermann said Velsicol workers manufactured benzoic acid and derivatives, as well as chlorinated toluene-based products that are used in food preservatives, pesticides and plastics.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, benzene causes cancer in humans, and long-term exposure to high levels of benzene in the air can cause leukemia, a cancer of the blood-forming organs.
Public input
At last week's public hearing in Alton Park, TDEC's Tommy Himes acknow-ledged that Velsicol's plan to put 12 to 18 inches of soil on the property is not actually a cleanup.
The permit modification suggested by the state and Velsicol reads this way:
"The remedy will basically be to install a clean soil cover over contaminated soils and sediments, which will serve as a barrier to human exposure and for containment of the underlying contaminated soil."
Velsicol will continue groundwater and contaminant monitoring and recovery operations at one area of the plant where a large ground sink of coal tar was discovered. The company also must continue to monitor and remove contaminants at Piney Woods Spring, a natural spring near the Piney Woods park and playground.
The company proposes in the permit modification to fence off the site.
One audience member asked why the state won't just make Velsicol dig up the pollution.
Another audience member answered with sarcasm: "Because they can't dig that deep," the man said before leaving in apparent disgust.
Himes told local residents that their comments for or against the planned action "would have no impact" on the state's decision unless they had a "scientific" argument.
Dwight Jones, a former Velsicol union president who worked at the plant for 40 years, said 27 former workers among 102 union employees who were at Velsicol in 1980 have died of cancer in recent years.
Jones said that at one time, hundreds of drums of pollutants had been piled at the rear of the Velsicol site and allowed to rust out or burst.
Jones asked state officials and Hermann to reshow a slide of the plant from an aerial view so he could point out to the state where he said the company had spilled or dumped pollutants. But Hermann said he already had shut down his computer.
After repeated requests, Hermann opened the laptop computer, but said he couldn't get it to work. A young man in the audience eventually got the picture on screen after about 15 minutes, but neither the company nor the state responded to Jones' claims.
Hermann already had told the audience that Velsicol in the last two or three years had spent millions of dollars cleaning the site and conducting sampling tests.
What's the future?
The site can be used only for industry, according to Hermann and TDEC permit writer Clayton Bullington.
"It cannot be used for a playground or park," Bullington said at the meeting.
That's not acceptable to Woods, Jackson, Jones and several others who spoke up last week.
Woods said the state wants only scientific comments, and the community wants scientific answers.
"What do these chemicals do in the groundwater? What do they do in the air? What do these chemicals do to the body? There are many people in this community dying of cancer. Has anybody looked at that?" she asked.
"And you say the next industry to use it will decide the level of cleanup? This is a residential community again now. We don't want another industry out here to destroy it again," she said.