NLV facility to store hazardous waste step closer to reality

Diana Sahagun

Thursday, March 9, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

One North Las Vegas Planning commissioner believes the potential dangers of storing hazardous waste -- no matter how minute -- are reason enough to keep the materials away from a nearby Holiday Inn Express.

Commissioner Tom Langford cast the lone dissenting vote Wednesday against granting a permit to Safety-Kleen Corp. to occupy a 9,000-square-foot office-warehouse for the storage of hazardous materials at Donovan Way, north of Craig Road next to the hotel.

Safety-Kleen is the leader in providing environmental services to businesses and is the world's largest recycler of automotive and industrial fluid wastes such as oil, antifreeze and cleaning solvents.

The company hopes to move from Las Vegas Boulevard and Owens Avenue, where it has been housed since 1977.

"You have a facility where people are going to be living or staying in that hotel," Langford said. "You have a hazardous material right next door, and a mistake could happen. You can't predict it, you don't know when it's going to happen.

"I don't think this facility has any business being next to a place where people are living or staying -- it shouldn't be there."

At its current location, the company also stores mixed liquid waste in varying amounts such as arsenic, barium, lindane, mercury and chloroform. The materials are stored in double-walled drums for 10 days, then sent out of state to be recycled. The materials are resold as a new product.

Safety-Kleen representatives told the commissioners that the proximity to the hotel was irrelevant because all of the materials are safely stored.

Although the company had no violations in nine years, in 1991 it agreed to pay a $13,200 fine to settle a state complaint that it violated Nevada's hazardous-waste disposal law.

State investigators discovered the company had stored 15 hazardous-waste shipments at its business for more than 10 days without a permit issued. As part of the agreement, the company did not admit any wrongdoing.

One year later, Safety-Kleen agreed to pay $15,000 to settle similar violations, with no admission of liability of wrongdoing.

The item will go before the North Las Vegas City Council for final action later. Safety-Kleen will also have to submit site plans to the commission and council for approval.

Diana Sahagun covers North Las Vegas for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2320 or by e-mail at diana@lasvegassun.com