Denver’s plan to remove radium-tainted waste from a site near Cheesman Park this summer may stall because of a continuing dispute over the legal status of a waste disposal facility in Adams County.
A regional board overseeing low-level radioactive waste disposal decided Wednesday to once again deny the city’s request to continue shipping radium street waste to an Idaho waste site.
Instead, the board ruled, the city should make plans to send the waste to a newly licensed landfill near Last Chance owned by Massachusetts- based Clean Harbors Environmental Services Inc.
Denver, however, continues to question whether the Clean Harbors landfill is properly permitted.
“I can’t think of a worse situation for us to be in,” said Assistant City Attorney Shaun Sullivan.
Sullivan said the city believes the waste facility never got permission from Adams County to begin accepting low-level radioactive waste.
Adams County has threatened to seek a legal injunction against anyone who disposes waste at the landfill, Sullivan said.
“We can’t take the risk of having a street open and having an injunction over us that would force us to stop,” Sullivan said.
In the 1920s, waste from a local radium processing plant was used to pave streets in the Capitol Hill area.
The Denver Radium Site, consisting of 65 properties, was designated a federal Superfund site in 1983, and for the past decade, crews have excavated the material.
City officials had hoped to complete the project next year, but that goal may be missed as a result of the legal wrangling over the Clean Harbors site.
“We don’t want to be tied down in this mess,” said Ali Sogue, the city’s project manager. “Let us do our work.”
Clean Harbors officials, backed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, insist they have the required waste disposal permits.
“The notion our license is not valid is at the heart of the litigation Adams County has brought against us,” said Clean Harbors vice president Bill Geary, noting that two judges recently dismissed the county’s claims.
Company officials say they’ve already spent $3 million making sure the site could receive Denver’s radium waste and anticipated receiving $2.1 million for the transport and disposal of that material.
The Rocky Mountain Low- Level Radioactive Waste Compact Board – which regulates low-level radioactive waste in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico – decided that Denver’s request to use an Idaho waste site would deliver an undue economic blow to the Clean Harbors facility.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or kmcguire@denverpost.com.
