EPA blasts Silver State, county on slow cleanup

Tuesday, May 16, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

Clark County and a waste company are facing $25,000 a day in fines if delays continue in the cleanup of the old Sunrise Mountain landfill.

In a letter sent Friday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency blistered Republic-Silver State Disposal Service Inc. and the county for "a pattern of delays" in assessing the extent of water and soil contamination at the closed landfill east of Las Vegas.

The EPA ordered the landfill cleaned more than a year ago. The first step in that cleanup is an analysis of the contamination at the site -- a step the EPA charges has been too slow.

"This is a slap upside the head of Republic-Silver State that they are under these orders and need to get on with the work," County Comprehensive Planning Director John Schlegel said. "I think the EPA has lost patience. Maybe it's not just a slap upside the head, maybe it's a slap with a two by four."

The EPA was more restrained in its tone, but made it clear that this was the first step in a process that could end in sanctions.

"EPA remains concerned with the pace of site assessment work at Sunrise landfill," the EPA's Heidi Hall, chief of the solid waste program, said in the five-page letter sent to the county and the company.

The assessment will determine how the cleanup will progress, but it is likely to include removing some of the trash and covering what is left.

Republic-Silver State Vice President Alan Gaddy said the company is responding to the EPA's order. "It's a little frustrating with all the deadlines," he said Monday. "It may seem a little harsh, but we will respond."

Republic-Silver State accepted full responsibility for the cleanup as part of a $36 million, 15-year contract extension for local garbage collection.

The landfill cleanup delay has slowed the county's efforts to purchase the land, Schlegel said Monday.

The Bureau of Land Management has leased 720 acres to the county for a landfill since 1962. The site was closed to municipal dumping in 1993, but was capped improperly. Environmental problems, including methane gas leaks and a flood in September 1998 that sent tons of waste into Southern Nevada's drinking water supply, brought a federal order to clean up the site.

In November the County Commission voted to start purchasing between 800 and 1,000 acres containing the landfill. It plans to turn the property into a recreational site.

But the county cannot begin purchasing the site until boundaries are established and the extent of the problem is analyzed, Schlegel said.

Although initial work on ground water and soils began in March, it "has not yielded any meaningful results," Hall said. So the EPA set a rate of 160 feet per day -- or 20 feet an hour on an eight-hour shift -- for Silver State to drill test wells. Contractors also will have to submit daily drilling progress reports.

"Due to the repeated number of equipment problems that you have had in conducting this work, we will no longer accept lack of equipment or equipment breakdowns as an acceptable excuse for failure to meet these requirements," Hill said.

After three requests for raw data on lagoons found on the property, EPA said it received some information on Friday, but was still reviewing it.

By Friday the county and the company have to supply EPA a list of all contractors and workers involved in the assessment of the landfill, as well as all geophysical information they have gathered.

By the end of next week the amount of soil spread over the landfill since the September 1998 flood and a report on any off-site wastes near the landfill must be in EPA's hands.

If there are any delays in the new deadlines, the county and the company have to submit a formal request under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act or face an EPA violation that triggers the penalty process.

Mary Manning

covers environmental issues for the Sun. She can be reached by phone at (702) 259-4065 or e-mail: manning@lasvegassun.com