Park City mounts charge against Superfund Jlting ',1 Top stor of 1985 Park City spent at least half of 1985 fighting the inclusion of of Prospector Pro-spector Square on the national Superfund list a distinction officials of-ficials say casts a stigma on the town as a whole. The city mounted an attack against data collected by the Utah Department of Health which invited in-vited the Superfund listing took remedial steps to cover the mine tailings thought to be a potential environmental en-vironmental hazard and garnered backing from Utah's governor and congressional delegation in the fight. It was literally an olf-again, on-again on-again year. In March, the Reagan Administration's Administra-tion's Office of Management and Budget removed Prospector from the proposed update to the National Priorities List, which makes some 8(0 sites eligible for' Superfund money nationally, But it was replaced on the proposed propos-ed update to the list when the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in a similar case that Superfund money cXiuId be used for hard-rock mine clearaujfSlk Prospector Square and its retWi-tial retWi-tial neighbor, Prospector Park, were built upon a tailings pondtrmrr silver mining dating back to thjflffe" 1800s. In October 1983, thetJtaTi Geological and Mineral Survey, under contract with the municipality, municipali-ty, found that the soils under Prospector Pro-spector contained high concentrations concentra-tions of lead, cadmium and arsenic. State health officials later found that "no imminent health hazard" exists in the area, but four area children were found to have elevated blood-lead levels that might have been related to the taihngs. Following , Prospector's replace ment on the proposed update to Superfund, Park City officials, led by city manager Arlene Loble, mounted an attack on the health department and its data. The city contracted lor independent indepen-dent tests whose results either contradict con-tradict or point out errors in the original data used in the listing. In doing so, local officials became "i more critical of the EPA's Hazard i Ranking System used to qualify Pro- ' spector for the Superfund en- ' vironmental study. ,,q In September, Park City gained the support of Utah Gov. Norirv Bangerter in its struggle to get off ; the list. The state health department' simultaneously changed its stance and began to back-the city's attempts at-tempts to wrest free of the EPA. And Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Jake , Garn as well as Utah's 3rd District. '. Congressman Howard Nielson all said they would work for the., delisting of Prospector. . In the meantime, Prospector, residents and businessmen formed a ', $1.4 million special improvement district aimed at covering the tailings tail-ings with 6 inches of topsoil and making streambed improvements to keep tailings from migrating into Silver Creek; ' which , borders the,: development. One EPA official said those steps : are most likely the only ones that could be taken, short of removing I the 100 acres of tailings. With the aid of Hatch and Nielson, Loble and an entourage of Park City . officials presented their alternative, data to Superfund director Henry L. Longest in Washington D.C. Longest, however, would not comment com-ment on the material and would not say when a decision would be made on. .Prospector. For now, the listing of Prospector hangs in limbo.