Velsicol contamination hearing Thursday in Chattanooga

photo Dwight Jones, a Velsicol employee for 40 years, talks about the time he spent working for Velsicol and the effects working at the plant had on his co-workers.

Velsicol Chemical wants to complete environmental cleanup of its Alton Park site by covering the 30- to 40-acre parcel with an 18-inch layer of clean soil that officials say will cap any remaining contamination and eliminate any health risk.

The company operated on the site for 44 years, producing chemicals used in herbicides as well as food preservatives, until it closed in 2007.

Gary Hermann, Velsicol Chemical's senior environmental projects manager, said most contaminants on the site were removed between 1999 and 2001.

"We've already removed many millions of pounds of contaminated soil from the site, so what the remedy is, is to basically put on a soil barrier," Hermann said. "The soil barrier will keep the soil where it's at. What little contamination that's left will stay where it's at."

But former Velsicol employee Dwight Jones said capping and covering the site won't be enough to protect people from chemicals that leaked into the ground over four decades.

"There are some things they really need to check," he said. "If there's chemicals down in the ground, you just don't want to cover it. If they do that, I don't know why anyone would want to build something over there."

Jones, Velsicol's former United Steelworkers union president, said he knows through union records of 27 cancer deaths among 102 union employees who were at Velsicol in 1980.

He is among dozens of former Velsicol employees who plan to attend a hearing on the cleanup plan Thursday at the Bethlehem Community Center. Alton Park residents also will attend.

The meeting is hosted by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to take public comment on plans for the final cleanup.

THE PLAN

Hermann said the Velsicol site will be fenced off and secured, but if people walk over it, they will be walking on the same clean soil that's in their backyards.

"So there's no risk," Hermann said. "We don't believe there is, and the state is proposing the (remediation) plan pretty much as we recommended it."

With present cleanup plans, the land will not be suitable for homes or a playground. Instead, it will be limited to warehouses and industrial use, officials said.

If all goes according to plan, work to put down clean soil will begin this summer, Hermann said.

After a study that included three other cleanup alternatives, TDEC concluded that the soil covering would be the best method because it protects human health and is the most cost effective, according to an agency fact sheet.

TDEC officials say nothing is final and they will consider public comments.

"That's the final remedy that the state has proposed for them to do, but we will look at all comments and take them under consideration," said Roger Donovan with TDEC's Division of Solid Waste Management.

CHEMICALS ON SITE

Milton Jackson, an Alton Park resident and president of the advocacy group Stop Toxic Pollution, said the Velsicol site is polluted with benzoic acid, benzene, ammonia, coal tar and chloride.

Hermann said the Velsicol plant produced benzoic acid and derivatives and chlorinated toluene-based products, which are used in food preservatives, pesticides and plastics.

The plant on the site before Velsicol produced coal tar and ferroalloy. Coal tar is used for asphalt, and ferroalloy is a blend of iron and other metals, Hermann said.

Benzene causes cancer in humans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Long-term exposure to high levels of benzene in the air can cause leukemia, a cancer of the blood-forming organs.

Jones said Velsicol Chemical pumped potentially cancer-causing chemicals into the soil for decades.

Public meetingWhat: Velsicol hearingWhen: Thursday. Question-and-answer period from 5:30-6 p.m.; formal hearing begins at 6 p.m.Where: Bethlehem Center, 200 W. 38th St.Information: Public comments concerning the cleanup may be submitted to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation until Jan. 21.

"Back in 1966, they had thousands of drums built to hold chemicals. But they'd rot, and the stuff would run out of them and go into the ground, and some of them blew up in the air. There was all kind of chemicals," Jones said.

He said the company spent at least $2 million cleaning chemicals dumped near the site in the late 1970s.

Elizabeth Tallman-Gazaway, who works in Alton Park where the plant was located, said Velsicol should remove the polluted soil instead of covering it.

"What they're going to do is to just cover it up with a pile of soil," she said. "Some residents are disappointed about that."

But Jackson said he agrees with the soil-cover procedure.

"In the years that I've worked on the program, they've (Velsicol Chemical) done things correctly," Jackson said.

The soil cover is better than digging up more soil and risking contaminants in the soil flying through the area, Jackson said.

Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.

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