After 15 years of conflict between La Plata County and the state health department, the two reached an agreement this week concerning the closed Bayfield landfill.
The compliance order on consent, approved unanimously by the Board of County Commissioners Tuesday, means the county will have to develop a more robust monitoring plan for the site, which will include mapping the spread of high vinyl chloride levels and increased water testing.
The order also resolves pending litigation with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. As a result, the county is eligible to apply for funding from a pot of $15 million set aside in the Closed Landfill Remediation Grant Program, which was created by the legislature this year.
Although the Bayfield landfill was closed in accordance with regulations at the time, the vinyl chloride found to be leaching out of it in 2004 has haunted the county since then.
The 32-acre site was purchased by the county in 1970 and stopped accepting waste in 1994.
“Government gets the things that are broken,” Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton said from the dais Tuesday, noting that the Bayfield landfill was one such example.
In 2008, CDPHE requested that the county achieve compliance with state water quality standards, which dictate that vinyl chloride levels in groundwater may not exceed 2 micrograms per liter. Several monitoring wells have revealed levels of the chemical above that benchmark in groundwater nearby the site. No domestic wells used for consumption have yielded samples with chemical levels exceeding the threshold.
The conflict between the county and CDPHE has only grown since 2008, and boiled over in 2021 when the Colorado Supreme Court ordered the county to comply with CDPHE regulation.
Despite the vote of approval Tuesday, commissioners and County Attorney Sheryl Rogers voiced serious concerns over the agreement and its unknown impact on taxpayers going forward.
“It would be disingenuous to say that we are pleased and comfortable with all of the provisions,” Rogers told the board.
However, Commissioner Matt Salka said there was no other alternative but to comply, given the lengthy history of conflict.
Thanks to a bill sponsored by 59th House District Rep. Barbara McLachlan at the urging of La Plata County Commissioners and the Colorado Counties Inc., the state will have a funding mechanism available by July 1, 2024. The grant program is expected to defer some of the costs of compliance, which at last estimate (over five years ago) clocked in around $3 million.
The agreement reached Tuesday enables the county to apply for the funding – but how much the remediation could cost and how much the state might cover are both unknown.
With his primary concern – the health and safety of county residents – rendered moot, Salka said the cost to taxpayers becomes the next biggest issue.
“That's the uncomfortable feeling for myself moving forward on the approval, and that is because we just don't know what the next steps are (and) the cost … for La Plata County,” he said in an interview with The Durango Herald.
The agreement opens a door on a financial commitment that will impact the county’s annual budget for many years to come, he said before Tuesday’s vote.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
