Editorial: Sunrise landfill needs a solution

Monday, Sept. 28, 1998 | 9:47 a.m.

THE public has every right to be confused.

As the Sun's Mary Manning reported last week, a recent flash flood caused a breach in the old Sunrise landfill and allowed a torrent of wastes to flow into an area just four miles from the source of the Las Vegas Valley's drinking water.

But there is no consensus on whether there is a threat to the public health from the landfill. Much of the confusion started last week when the Sierra Club called for the health district to quarantine this four-mile stretch of debris emanating from the old landfill. Sierra Club representatives said they found a variety of materials to concern them, including intravenous tubing, household garbage, construction debris and 55-gallon drums.

But Clark County Chief Health Officer Donald Kwalick said there wasn't a need for a quarantine. Kwalick did say, however, that warning signs will be posted beside the waste stream until Silver State can clean up the garbage from the landfill.

Regardless of whether there is a threat to public safety today, the reality is something needs to be done to clean up this mess. The public simply wants someone to take responsibility for the old landfill and make sure that its wastes are sufficiently contained and not harming the environment.

The finger-pointing has got to stop. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has expressed its concerns about the landfill cover to Clark County. A full range of tests is needed to see whether there is a danger to the public.

Representatives from the county Public Works Department, county health district, state Health Division, state Environmental Protection Division and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should sit down and finally agree on a permanent solution to this problem, a problem that has dragged on far too long. For the public's sake, it's time to get to the bottom of this mess, once and for all.