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Colorado told La Plata County to clean up its landfill; now the state will pay for it

A bill awaiting governor’s signature dedicates money to remediation at sites like the one in Bayfield
La Plata County Commissioner and former Bayfield Mayor Matt Salka describes how the 56 sparge wells work to vent vinyl chloride from the ground under the now-closed Bayfield landfill. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)
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Colorado Supreme Court orders La Plata County to clean up toxic landfill
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The grinding bureaucracy of government is rarely glamorous – least of all when the topic of concern is a decades-old trash pile. But public officials elected by the voters of La Plata County are nonetheless celebrating the passage of HB23-1194, which is awaiting the signature of Gov. Jared Polis.

The legislation establishes a fund from which the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will administer grants to local governments to assist in environmental remediation for closed landfills.

The legislation’s journey to the governor’s desk began just west of Bayfield on County Road 223, where a closed landfill – the one now at the top of the list for grant funding – sits, an unrelenting thorn in the county’s side. The landfill occupies about 15 acres, totaling an estimated 100,000 cubic yards of municipal waste.

For years, La Plata County has clashed with state regulators over the landfill, which it purchased in 1970. The facility ceased accepting waste in 1994, and was closed in compliance with state regulations at the time.

But in the mid-2000s, groundwater monitoring detected elevated levels of vinyl chloride, a toxic compound ubiquitous to household items. The chemical’s name splashed across newspapers in February when a train carrying the gas derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, raising concerns about environmental contamination.

Vinyl chloride can cause dizziness, headaches and, in very high doses over long time periods, liver effects and cancer.

The county began testing nearby wells and found that while the chemical had spread beyond the confines of the landfill, it was not affecting (at the time nor now) any drinking water wells nearby.

Salka

As state standards changed, conflict between the county and CDPHE arose, said County Commissioner and former Bayfield Mayor Matt Salka.

In 2015, the state asked the county to undertake additional remediation efforts. The county had already made progress toward achieving state standards by installing sparge wells – technology that removes contaminating gasses by sucking them out of the ground.

The county resisted, citing the absence of any negative impact to the outlying community’s drinking water and its ongoing mitigation efforts. The case ultimately landed in the state Supreme Court.

The court ruled that the county had to comply with CDPHE’s cleanup order and was stuck with a bruising $337,000 in legal fees.

Today, Salka estimates that CDPHE’s requested remediation would cost about $3 million – with little benefit to the county’s taxpayers, he said.

Since its closure in 1994, the county has used water monitoring wells on and around the former Bayfield landfill to ensure that vinyl chloride leaking from the site does not affect surrounding drinking water. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

“We have no proof – we have testing wells all around our landfill showing that the levels are good and it’s not impacting anybody’s drinking water,” he said.

But still, the county and the state remained in opposition.

“We were all professional, we’re all working together, we just really butted heads for a while regarding next steps,” Salka said. “It’s kind of like a poker game.”

Rather than pony up for more sparge wells, Salka and his colleagues turned to Colorado Counties Inc. The nonprofit acts as a lobbying power of sorts for local governments to unite around issues and affect statewide change.

Numerous testing wells are located at the closed Bayfield landfill. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

After a year of meetings and discussions, CCI’s member counties unanimously endorsed a draft of the bill.

The text was brought to the General Assembly by 59th House District Rep. Barbara McLachlan and introduced on Feb. 12.

“Sometimes battling it out with CDPHE or any other state organization or entity – it’s much better to find a middle (ground), working both together to accomplish the same goal,” Salk said. “... This was a clever way to really make it so that the county and state share the cost, instead of it being on the backs of just the counties.”

The bill passed the House by a margin of 61-2 and passed the Senate by a margin of 32-1.

For the 2023-24 fiscal year, the bill allocates $15 million from the state’s general fund to a grant fund, monitored by CDPHE and distributed by a five-person panel to be assembled within the next 12 months. The panel will make annual recommendations to the Legislature regarding funding needs.

“They decided to stop the nonsense of fighting and just say, ‘How can we fix things,’” McLachlan said. “It’s kind of good government when you look at it. If there’s a problem, let’s address it instead of fighting about it all the time.”

The state has approximately 10 closed landfills in need of remediation work – but La Plata County’s is a priority, McLachlan and Salka say. And more are likely to be closed in the future and may need more work.

rschafir@durangoherald.com



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