Colorado environmental regulators have given a Massachusetts-based company preliminary approval to accept low-level radioactive waste at its landfill near Last Chance.
The state Department of Public Health and Environment on Friday issued Clean Harbors Environmental Services Inc. a draft hazardous-waste permit and radioactive-materials license. The license allows the company to dispose of specific kinds of low-level radioactive waste at the facility, about 70 miles east of Denver.
If the department gives the company’s plan final approval, the Last Chance dump will become the first in the state to have a license to accept radioactive waste.
“We’ve gone through a highly technical process and are very pleased to have finally reached this milestone,” said Phillip Retallick, Clean Harbor’s senior vice president for compliance and regulatory affairs.
Residents who live near the dump have said that since the landfill began accepting hazardous waste in 1991, different owners have promised them repeatedly that the landfill would never accept radioactive waste.
The company plans to store waste such as contaminated soils and debris containing naturally occurring radioactive materials.
Company officials have discussed disposing of waste from a Denver Superfund site where radium-processing waste is buried beneath several streets near Cheesman Park.
State environmental regulators have said that the kind of waste Clean Harbors plans to accept at the Last Chance dump contains radioactivity that is not much higher than background levels.
“We believe we have a plan that can be done in compliance with our regulations,” said Gary Baughman, director of the department’s hazardous-materials and waste-management division.
The department will accept comments on a draft license and permit through Oct. 11. A final decision is expected soon after that.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
