The Park City School District has removed contaminated soil uncovered on the Treasure Mountain demolition site to comply with a local environmental covenant despite the Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s ruling that the material did not need to be treated as hazardous waste.
Colton Elliott, a spokesperson for the district, confirmed contractors began transporting soil piles to a landfill last week and completed the project on Wednesday afternoon.
“As outlined under state regulatory guidance and our approved site management protocols, any soil exceeding thresholds is required to be safely disposed of off-site,” Elliott said. “Throughout the removal process, the district continues to coordinate with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality to ensure all environmental and safety protocols are strictly followed, including ongoing dust mitigation and air quality monitoring.”
The Utah Department of Environmental Quality concluded a joint investigation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month into whether the site qualified for a hazardous waste exemption under state and federal law.
Whether waste is legally classified as hazardous or non-hazardous is important because specialists may be needed to clean and dispose of hazardous materials depending on the level of toxicity. Waste classified as non-hazardous may still have contaminants, but at a low enough level that it may be disposed of in a traditional landfill.
The contaminated soil, which had elevated levels of arsenic and lead, was uncovered by contractors on the property when the district demolished the Treasure Mountain Junior High building to create room for its new sports complex.
Dave Noriega with the Department of Environmental Quality previously said that heightened levels of arsenic and lead are to be expected in a historic mining town like Park City and that the presence of those materials does not necessarily pose health concerns to the local community.
“Perimeter air monitoring has consistently shown lead and dust levels below (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) exposure limits, meaning airborne exposure has not been a risk,” Noriega said in April. “Because the contaminated soil is properly handled and contained under the site’s safety plans, immediate exposure risks to the public are mitigated.”
The district qualified for a Bevill exemption, meaning it did not need to treat the soil as hazardous waste. The exemption may be granted for a variety of reasons, but it is likely the school district qualified because of the town’s mining history, as the exemption was designed to make removing industrial and mining waste at its point of origin easier.
However, the Park City School District was still required to remove and transport the contaminated soil to a landfill because of a 2017 environmental covenant it entered with Summit County.
The covenant was created after the Environmental Protection Agency discovered contaminated soil on the Treasure Mountain campus in 2014, which led to a federal investigation and cleanup in 2016. The school district filed the environmental covenant with Summit County the following year “to mitigate the risk to the public health, safety and the environment.”
The agreement included a provision requiring the school district to remove any materials that fail to meet Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure thresholds, which is a chemical analysis to determine levels of toxicity.
The state’s determination allows the district to more easily dispose of the soil, but it does not mean the soil is not contaminated. The piles failed to meet the threshold outlined in the environmental covenant because of the heightened lead and arsenic levels, meaning the district must dispose of the material in a landfill instead of reburying it, as it has done in the past.
The Park City School District has not been fined for the contaminated soil, which Noriega previously said is reserved for “a significant violation, which has not occurred” in Park City.