Toxic sludge plan faces obstacles

Friday, March 10, 2000 | 11:38 a.m.

A hazardous-waste company wants to treat and bury toxic sludge contaminated with mercury at a site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but state officials said the plan faces major hurdles.

US Ecology Inc. operates the only hazardous landfill in Nevada near Beatty. The company notified the state it will apply for treating and recycling 5,000 tons of sludge in cements and soils. The sludge was returned to Taiwan after it was illegally dumped in Cambodia last year. Two shipping workers died from apparent mercury poisoning in Cambodia, setting off riots.

A year ago US Ecology asked the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection for a permit to dispose of the mercury-laced sludge at Beatty, David Emme, waste management program director, said. Nevada denied the permit because of restrictions on burying high concentrations of mercury.

"They went away for awhile, then came back with this proposal, saying it doesn't matter if it's high concentrations or low," Emme said today.

US Ecology said it has mobile units that can treat the contaminated sludge, cook it with high heat, then recover the mercury. Beatty workers would have to wear protective clothing, Emme said.

When Emme asked company officials why they could not treat about 18,000 drums of the toxic sludge sitting on a dock in Taiwan by bringing the process over there, they said Taiwan's environmental laws are as strict or stricter than California's, he said.

"It's a waste stream that definitely has a checkered history," Emme said.

After Formosa Plastics Corp., one of Taiwan's largest businesses, failed to dump the wastes in Cambodia, it tried to ship the sludge to a Latin American community near the U.S.-Mexican border. Safety-Kleen, another hazardous waste company, had offered to dump it at a hazardous landfill in Westmoreland, Calif. But the company backed off after California officials and environmentalists protested the plan to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA approved the sludge for Nevada last year, but Emme said whatever toxin is considered too hazardous for California also applies in this state.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said the mercury wastes should not come to Nevada. Last week Nevada was listed by the EPA as the No. 1 state in mercury contamination from mining operations.

"We're concerned with the overall message being sent that Nevada is a toxic dump," Bryan's spokesman David Lemmon said today.

Bryan said he will do everything he can to stop the sludge from coming to Nevada.

"We ought to do everything we can to stop it," Bryan said.