The Environmental Journal of Southern Appalachia

Displaying items by tag: smokey mountain smelters

Monday, 30 October 2023 12:25

Waste at Smokey Mountain Smelters finally sealed

EPA’s Peter Johnson addressed the cleanup efforts and some general ideas of what will come next in a recent YouTube video uploaded Monday, Oct. 23.
 

EPA consolidated toxic South Knoxville smelter refuse in single on-site landfill.

KNOXVILLE — The Smokey Mountain Smelters site is in the Vestal Community at 1508 Maryville Pike near Montgomery Village Apartments.

“We are excited to announce the cleanup at Smokey Mountain Smelters has been completed,” EPA remedial project manager Peter Johnson said.

From the 1920s through the 1960s, agricultural and chemical companies operated at the site before Smokey Mountain Smelters, also known as Rotary Furnace Inc., came to the location in 1979. The company melted scrap aluminum and aluminum dross together to cast the byproduct into aluminum bars. These operations continued until 1994.

Johnson has said in other talks the dross and saltcakes left over from the process react with water, releasing heat and ammonia gas. They leach aluminum, ammonia, chloride “and many other contaminants,” he said. Smokey Mountain Smelting’s toxins have flowed through groundwater into a tributary of Flenniken Branch, causing concerns about effects on fishing.

In 2010 the EPA placed the site on the Superfund program’s National Priorities List (NPL) because of contaminated soils, sediment and surface water resulting from past industrial operations at the site. The EPA did some cleanup work in 2010 and 2011.

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EPA finally capping toxic waste at South Knoxville Superfund site

KNOXVILLE — The Environmental Protection Agency this week began putting a protective cap on the former Smokey Mountain Smelters site to control its pollution.

The EPA said the cap will protect nearby waterways by stopping stormwater runoff from combining with the toxic waste on site. Engineers and workers began the project the week of July 6.

By cutting it off from the stormwater, the EPA hopes to stop toxins from flowing away either through groundwater or runoff. The site is off Maryville Pike in South Knoxville. Caleb Properties purchased two of the site’s three parcels at the Delinquent Property Tax Sale on May 16. EPA is building the cap and storing the waste in the area Caleb Properties purchased. The agency stated Caleb Properties committed to “allocating a portion of the development of the site for community benefit,” and they’ll still have to work with the EPA’s remedy for cleanup. 

Hellbender Press has reported on the cleanup sites and environmental legacies.

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Smokey Mountain Smelters siteSmokey Mountain Smelters site is seen in this EPA file photo. Work has commenced on cleaning up this particular Superfund site, but South Knoxville residents are wondering about the fate of the other highly toxic sites along Maryville Pike.

Vestal community leans into future of multiple South Knoxville Superfund sites 

KNOXVILLE — City residents are discussing the future of the Vestal community’s toxic sites after a long history of industrial use and activism that recently led to federally funded action to clean up at least one infamous Superfund site.

Vestal community resident Cathy Scott shared the history of each of these sites near Maryville Pike at South Knox Community Center during two Vestal Community Organization meetings related to the cleanup of multiple Superfund sites on the south side of the city.

She said in an email to Hellbender Press that much of her information came from John Nolt, formerly of the University of Tennessee Philosophy Department and author of the essay “Injustice in the Handling of Nuclear Weapons Waste: The Case of David Witherspoon Inc.,” which is chapter three of the book “Mountains of Injustice: Social and Environmental Justice in Appalachia.”

While the EPA is focusing on the Smokey Mountain Smelter site, Scott, Nolt and others have discussed other properties and their effects on nearby watersheds. The sites are all connected to the Witherspoon family. They are at are at 1508 Maryville Pike; 1630 Maryville Pike and adjacent land; 901 Maryville Pike and 4430 Candoro Ave. The meetings took place Feb. 13 and 22.

“It was a phenomenal accomplishment of community collaboration,” Eric Johnson, president of Vestal Community Organization, said of the two meetings. 

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Smokey Mountain Smelters siteAerial view (ca. 2002) of Smokey Mountain Smelters Superfund site, located between two rail lines. At left is the overpass of Maryville Pike, at right a section of Knox County Development Corporation’s Montgomery Village Apartments. The large smelter hall and a few of the apartment buildings have since been removed.  Image from TN Dept. of Health

Knoxville’s most polluted former industrial site is slated for a massive cleanup soon thanks to funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress recently passed. The Smokey Mountain Smelters site in Vestal has spent more than a decade on the National Priorities List, commonly called the “Superfund” list, of the most contaminated properties in the U.S. 

The work could start within just a few months, said Rusty Kestle, Environmental Protection Agency project manager for the site. He said it’s the top priority in the Southeast for the infrastructure funding because it’s among the most affordable and ready for action.

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IMG 9550The Montgomery Village public housing complex in South Knoxville is separated only by railroad tracks from the Smoky Mountain Smelters Superfund site (and the Witherspoon dump site).  S. Heather Duncan/Hellbender Press

A better use of the SMS/Witherspoon properties in Vestal may be constrained by toxic legacy and uncertain ownership

An imminent cleanup of a Superfund site in Vestal could pave the way for redevelopment and new life for the highly polluted property. But its future is complicated by muddy ownership and contradictory visions for its use.

The Smoky Mountain Smelters company left behind soil, groundwater and surface water pollution when it shuttered in 1994. But federal infrastructure funding is now slated to finish off a cleanup begun by the federal Environmental Agency at the Maryville Pike tract. Groundwater contamination below the surface is the most significant remaining problem. 

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