The companies involved in demolishing the Standard Coosa Thatcher textile plant are facing felony charges for conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act when asbestos was improperly removed from site.
Staff File PhotoTestimony in a federal criminal trial Thursday focused on how unprotected workers cleared asbestos-covered debris from the site of a demolished Chattanooga textile plant.
In the sixth day of trial for three men and two businesses charged with fraud and intentional environmental regulation violations, prosecution witnesses described workers sawing insulated pipes from the ceiling to drop on the floor and a backhoe scooping up refuse into piles around the site.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Morris asked Lisa Blackburn, one of the workers hired to clean up asbestos-contaminated scrap, what kind of protective clothing she was wearing.
“None,” Blackburn testified.
Pipes and other materials potentially contaminated with asbestos were heaped around the Standard Coosa Thatcher textile plant on the 1700 block of Watkins Street, Blackburn and witness Dayton Baggett testified Thursday.