Building a Greenway Through Historical Heavy Industry

The Tennessee Riverwalk is located in Chattanooga and streches ten miles along the Tennessee River. This project extends the Riverwalk an aditional 3 miles. This section consists largely of a 12' wide, lighted concrete trail that will traverse 17 seperately owned parcels including the former sites of the U. S. Pipe Company and Wheland Foundry as well as Alstom Power and Turbomachines Company, PSC Metals, Southern Foundry Supply, Design Alloys, and Vulcan Materials.  

All of these properties have a history of heavy industrial use. Several of the properties are contaminated with some level of hazardous materials. In fact, the trail extends up and over a closed foundry sand landfill for approximately 0.5 miles. The hazardous constituents found in foundry sand are metals (principally Pb) and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Other hazardous materials suspected to be encountered include petroleum products (principally oil) and some metals contamination associated with metals recycling operations.

Impacts of the presence of these hazardous materials to development of the Riverwalk have been mitigated in three ways:

• Routing of the Riverwalk on specific parcels has been placed so as to avoid the areas where hazardous materials may be present.

• Design of the walkway as a concrete surface with a fourteen-foot wide grass swale apron to limit contact with hazardous materials.

• In areas where the potential for contact with hazardous materials is higher, physical barriers including fences, rails, walls or other impediments to access are included in the design.

The project is currently under construction and scheduled for completion in May 2016.