The Summit County Council is keeping a close eye on ongoing talks between Park City Municipal Corp. and the federal Environmental Protection Agency about where a second contaminated soil depository should be located.
Currently, Park City and Summit County deposit contaminated soil in Richardson Flat, south of State Road 248 near Quinn’s Junction.
Richardson Flat is a 160-acre government Superfund site designated for cleaning up the city’s and county’s watershed, according to Richard Mylott with the EPA.
“The city accessed some of the land for non-Superfund waste, mostly the soil they have dug up from the city that is contaminated by old mine waste,” said Mylott. “We have capped the amount of waste the city can put in the site not so much because of toxicity, but because of access. Our primary focus right now is cleaning up the watershed near Silver Creek and need the land at Richardson Flat for that.”
Summit County Manager Bob Jasper said Park City and the EPA are actively looking for a new repository, but the county has not been included in the conversations.
“Park City doesn’t have much space for a second repository, so we want to be part of these negotiations and possibly find a place both entities can share in the future,” Jasper said.
Jasper declined to comment on potential locations in Summit County for a second repository.
Park City does have the option of hauling their contaminated soil to Tooele County, the next closest repository site, but City Manager Tom Bakaly said that is an expensive option.
“Park City generates a very low amount of soil to be placed in the repository. So far, only about 30,000 cubic feet,” Bakaly said. “The EPA said the capacity of the repository is 600,000 feet of soil and they need somewhere to place 1.5 million cubic feet of soil from the Silver Creek drainage. So everyone is actively looking for solutions to our space problem.”
Bakaly added that the city may partner with the county to find a new repository but no locations have been identified yet.
“It is the EPA that is taking the lead on this,” he said. “We are hoping there is a low-cost option identified for the future to help clean up our mining past.”