The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is asking Tennessee hazardous waste regulators to extend the Jan. 21 comment deadline on a planned “final remedy” for the idled and contaminated Velsicol chemical manufacturing site.
Carl Blair, regional representative of ATSDR, attended a meeting to hear citizen concerns Tuesday, and said he’ll ask the state for time to let his agency look at the plan.
“You have enough concerns [to be worried],” Blair told the group. “It’s good to see you’re not giving up.”
ATSDR, a public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is charged under the Superfund Act of 1980 to assess the presence and nature of health hazards at specific Superfund sites.
The Velsicol site is adjacent to Chattanooga Creek, a mostly cleaned-up Superfund site that STOP helped get designated as a national priority cleanup site nearly two decades ago.