Are you truly safe from Chattanooga’s contaminated land?
For safe development purposes, land has been divided into two categories: greenfields and brownfields. You likely sense that a greenfield would be a farm or a place where no business or manufacturer has ever polluted. By process of elimination then, a brownfield could be everything else except waterways and wetlands.
Say you’re a developer and you would like to build, reuse, or renovate an apartment building downtown. You need a design and a city permit that meets zoning requirements. However, you can’t get a permit until you show that your site is in a suitable environmental condition for your plan even if there is already a building on it.
The city and state want you, the developer, to show that no pollutants will harm anyone choosing to live in that building. In other words, before buying in, ask, “Is this site now or has it ever been a brownfield?”
If you choose to live in downtown Chattanooga, the answer to your question is most likely yes. This town had a long manufacturing history well before environmental regulations. Remember Ross-Mehan Foundry now under Finley Stadium? Not only that, the city has always been highly vulnerable to flooding. Land, say in Southside, would need to sit on higher ground to prevent flooding?
Commonly the fill for that purpose was used foundry sand—potentially contaminated with metals such as lead and other compounds like polyaronmatic hydrocarbon compounds (PAH) such as napthalene, plus formaldehyde, phenols, benzaldehyde, isoforonide isocyanate and other stuff you can’t pronounce. Lead contaminants are likely in some soils due to deposits of lead-based gasoline and paint or water. St. Elmo has been filled 20 feet over the years.
Today you are likely to be safe even living atop a past brownfield because EPA has established regulations to prevent your exposure. Any developer must acquire an environmental assessment if contamination is suspected or perceived. Developers take this first step in making a brownfield safe for its next intended use by hiring an environmental company to conduct a Phase I Study.
The land’s history will be checked and a document search will show whether there’s contamination or not. If it appears contaminated, then one must conduct a Phase II Study in which soil core samples are taken and analyzed. This is a protection for citizens and for someone who buys the property. You are liable if you sell it without documenting its condition.
Fortunately, there is some help for the developer. The state has a Voluntary Cleanup, Oversight and Assistance Program (VOAP) for sites with hazardous substances. The State Remediation Program handles cleanups from spill events and petroleum sites.
For developers who enroll, it provides limited liability. There are several city brownfields in the program. The point person for our region is Troy Keith located in the TN Department of Environment & Conservation local field office.
Now ‘clean condition’ is a relative term. It depends on what the intended use for the site is and how previous conditions have been remedied if at all. Remedies might include simply putting a non-porous cap over the land (Velsicol and Montague Park/old landfill), putting a waterproof vapor liner under the building (Chattanooga Coke site), or digging up the contaminated soil and dumping it in a landfill (TVA’s Kingston coal ash spill to low income Perry County, AL).
Whatever is done must assure that the land is safe for its intended use. That’s a good thing. Let us hope that our present administration does not gut both EPA and Department of Energy regulations just to save developers some time and money. It’s often the poor who suffer the most without strong regulations. The Feds are writing the budget now. Call your legislators and let them know EPA regulations protect us and should not be eliminated.
As Troy Keith says, “Nobody is in favor of dirty air and dirty water.” We prefer clean soil too.
Sandra Kurtz is an environmental community activist and is presently working through the Urban Century Institute. You can visit her website to learn more at enviroedu.net