Residents Turn Toxic Site Near Emory into Park

An area that was once an asbestos-poisoned wetland is now a new park in the Emory University area thanks to local volunteers, incuding the South Fork Conservancy.

The Saporta Report website details the project:

Zonolite Park is 12 acres near Briarcliff and Clifton Roads, where the South Fork of Peachtree Creek parallels railroad tracks. For two decades beginning in 1950, freight trains stopped at the W.R. Grace Co. plant and dumped as much as 1,225 tons of raw material for attic insulation marketed as Zonolite. Grace was an important business in DeKalb County, and the street where the plant was located was named Zonolite Road.

But Zonolite’s raw material carried natural asbestos fibers, and the Montana mine where it was dug ended up the target of a massive EPA investigation.