"Velsicol, a legacy polluter that manufactured pesticides, is proposing to hand over its 83-acre defunct facility in North Memphis to Tennessee as an environmental response trust. Should the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) accept a settlement agreement from the company, the state will be left to determine what to do with wide-ranging contamination including a baseball diamond-shaped pile of hazardous waste and a fluctuating groundwater plume of chemicals beneath it.
The proposal comes after the company faced questions this fall from environmental regulators and bankruptcy attorneys about inappropriate management and potentially fraudulent activity.
These new allegations shocked environmental justice advocates and residents in the historically Black community neighboring Velsicol. They have long expressed frustration over the company’s slow efforts to clean up, now more than 20 years in the making.
The North Memphis plant’s closure in 2012 was already a staggering delay compared to the nationwide action prompted by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “Silent Spring,” which exposed reckless pesticide production and application. As environmental policy changed and Velsicol plants shut down nationally in response, the Memphis facility continued creating these chemicals from a bygone era through the turn of the 21st century. "
Ashli Blow reports for the Tennessee Lookout December 11, 2024.
Advertisement 
