In October of 2012, a former Times Free Press reporter wrote: “Crews in hazmat suits will be a regular fixture in the yards of Chattanooga’s Southside for the next several months as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency works to remove toxic levels of lead from soil on 68 residential properties.”
The project, already deemed “extensive,” was concentrated on Read and Mitchell avenues, where mostly turn-of -the-20th -century homes had been renovated, and the area had gentrified, becoming a trendy mixed neighborhood in the newly booming southernmost edge of downtown Chattanooga.
The EPA had first been alerted to the potential contamination of soil in the area a year before by Tennessee health and environmental officials after a resident on Read Avenue who liked to garden showed up in an emergency room with lead poisoning. Initial tests of soil in the patient’s yard by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department found it to be “hot” with lead contamination. More testing later that fall found more yards with more lead trouble.
Fast forward six years (or maybe not so fast), and now several more neighborhoods have been added to the danger list. As a matter of fact, they’ve been added to a list of the America’s most toxic places.
The action comes in a move expected to open up additional funding for cleanup.