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The Salt Lake Tribune published a good
story the other day by Judy Fahys about a $12 million project
to remove dirt contaminated with lead and arsenic from a Salt Lake
County neighborhood at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. An
old lead smelter in the area left behind the toxic dirt.
Great project, right? Nobody wants dangerous dirt in their neighborhood.
It's a wonderful thing that we now have the technology and capability
to remove such nasty stuff and dispose of it safely so it will never
be a threat to health again.
This sort of project is very similar to what Envirocare
of Utah does. The firm safely and securely disposes of
slightly radioactive dirt and other contaminated materials to eliminate
health hazards and clean up the environment. The Envirocare facility
is located in the West Desert, 80 miles from the Wasatch Front.
Here's a typical example of an Envirocare project. In the 40s and
50s, several companies in the area around Montclair and Glen Ridge,
New Jersey, manufactured radium dials. When those companies closed
down, the slightly radioactive waste from many years of manufacturing
was not removed. Later, during a rapid growth period, developers
used contaminated soils in home foundations, driveways, parks and
other developments in the area.
In the 1980s, the State of New Jersey recognized the problem and
the area was designated a Superfund project by the Environmental
Protection Agency. Dozens of families were displaced for months
and even years as heavy equipment dug up soil from porches, yards,
parks and beneath homes. Over a 10-year period, that dirt was shipped
to Envirocare, where it was disposed of, safely and securely, and
will never be a problem again.
The project to clean up lead and arsenic contamination at the mouth
of Little Cottonwood Canyon is a terrific thing. What Envirocare
does is a terrific thing, too.
The question is sometimes asked, why does Utah need to take waste
from out-of-state? Why can't each state handle its own clean-up
problems? The answer to that is simple. To ensure proper disposal
of such waste, the federal government and the states have created
a compact system and certain classes of waste must be disposed of
at a state's designated compact site. Utah is part of the Northwest
Compact, so certain classes of Utah 's radioactive waste is shipped
to Richland, Washington.
As a private facility, Envirocare is not part of the compact system,
but cannot accept waste from states in the Northwest Compact. The
federal government has determined that radioactive waste is a national
problem and states must cooperate to dispose of it safely and securely.
Only a tiny fraction of the nation's low-level radioactive waste
is disposed of in Envirocare's West Desert facility.
- LaVarr Webb
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