State and federal officials will be in Stockton this week to present their mine and smelter waste cleanup plan and accept public comment.
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and Utah Department of Environmental Quality will hold a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the Stockton Fire Station, 207 N. Connor Avenue. During the meeting, they will discuss their proposed plan to clean up contaminated soil at the Jacobs Smelter Superfund Site Operable Unit Two.
Operable Unit Two covers about 30 acres west of SR-36 and includes the former Waterman Smelter in addition to the B&B and Rawhide Ranchettes subdivisions in Stockton.
However, contamination in Rawhide Ranchettes was cleaned up by previous projects and will not be included in this proposed cleanup plan, said Dave Allison, DEQ community involvement manager.
The proposed cleanup plan would remove contaminated soil to a depth of 18 inches and dispose of it at a permitted offsite facility. Workers would then place clean soil over any remaining contamination, and an annual inspection would take place to monitor the success of the plan, according to the plan document.
The agencies will make a final decision about their approach to the cleanup following the public comment period, which extends until Nov. 21.
Members of the public who wish to comment may do so during the meeting Thursday. They may also submit written comments to Tom Daniels, DEQ project manager, at tdaniels@utah.gov, or mail their comments to: Tom Daniels, DEQ Project Manager, Utah Department of Environmental Quality, 195 N. 1950 West, 1st Floor, Salt Lake City, Utah 84116.
“If there’s a comment or concern that needs to be addressed, we’ll tackle that,” Allison said. “Nothing’s finalized yet.”
The proposed plan and other documents are available online at www2.epa.gov/region8/jacobs-smelter. Questions may be posed to Allison, at 801-536-4479 or dallison@utah.gov.
After the proposed plan passes through the public comment process, the DEQ will formalize its cleanup plan, after which it still has to design the project in detail and line up construction and funding, Allison said. its outreach to affected property owners in the B&B subdivision, but it will be more proactive in contacting them when it gets closer to actual construction — which could take place a couple years from now.
“It’s difficult to talk schedules at this point; we’re just getting through the proposed plan,” Allison said. “But 2017 would probably be the earliest we do construction in the area. … It’s definitely a patient process, to say the least … but we have to be sure of what we’re cleaning up.”
The EPA and DEQ have been working to clean up contaminated soil in the Stockton area since 1999. The primary contaminants are lead and arsenic, which derive from mining and smelting activity in the 1860s and 1870s, the EPA said.