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Show Property owners' appeal could delay opening of Brown's Canyon dump by Christopher Smart Property owners are "virtuallj . certain" to appeal a decision that would allow a dump to be created in Brown's Canyon, according to Randall Trueblood, an attorney with the Salt Lake law firm Watkiss and Campbell. Such appeals could delay a permanent land fill site by as many as two years and throw Park City into a quandary as to where to dump its garbage. According to Trueblood, property owners already have notified the Utah Department of Health that an appeal will be made on a recent decision to allow Summit County to put a landfill in Brown's Canyon. The Bureau of Solid and Hazardous Waste, a branch of the Department of Health, last month gave prelim inary approval to Summit County to construct the dump there. Brown's Canyon property owners, who for the most part live along the Wasatch Front, have a number of avenues of appeal open, Trueblood said. The first appeal will be to the seven-member committee which oversees the Bureau of Solid and Hazardous Waste. Trueblood said that appeal will be based on a study commissioned by the property owners which indicates a landfill in Brown's Canyon could lead to the pollution of watersheds. The study was done by the Salt Lake City firm of Bingham Engineering. The Bingham study refutes an engineering study by Forsgren and Perkins that , claims the Brown's Canyon site is acceptable. Forsgren and Perkins is a Salt Lake City engineering firm hired by Summit County to study the Brown's Canyon area for suitability as a landfill site. If the appeal to the committee is unsuccessful, Trueblood said the landowners could file suit against the Department of Health in U.S. District Court. Currently, a suit against Summit County is pending in that court. Trueblood said the suit against the . county is now in the discovery phase. No trial date has been set. Filed by property owners, the suit alleges the Brown's Canyon site was selected illegally. It asks for about $10 million in damages and "injunctive relief," a move that would keep the county from putting the dump there. The property owners could join the state in that suit or file a separate suit against the Department of Health, Trueblood said. It is impossible to tell how long the proceedings could take, Trueblood said, but two years would not be out of the question. Meanwhile, Summit County has scheduled a public hearing March 20 to take public comment on the matter. According to County Commissioner Com-missioner Tom Flinders, the county would like to make a final decision on the Brown's Canyon dump site in the immediate future. Flinders said the worst thing that could happen would be for the decision on the dump to be "dragged out." Referring to Park City, Flinders said, "We don't have a lot of time." According to Park City officials, the landiiH east of town on Richardson Flat was scheduled to close Jan. 1 of this year. The land is owned by United Park City Mines. Director of Public Works Jerry Gibbs told the Park City Council in a March 7 work session the current landfill could be kept operational no later than October of this year. Councilman Tom Shellenberger admonished the council to create a -back-up plan in case Brown's Canyon isn't open for dumping by the time the city's current dump is closed. "If we don't have some kind of plan in our back pocket, we're foolish," he said. . Local officials are worried that construction crews will be unwilling to haul refuse to the county dump ' located 30 miles away in Henefer and instead will dump indiscriminately. Beyond the city's fear of indiscriminate indis-criminate dumping, Park City officials want the county to open a new dump because of expenditures incurred by keeping the current city dump open. The Park City dump cost $250,000 to operate last year, according to Gibbs. Since Jan. 1, Summit County has levied one mill on property owners inside city limits for the disposal of refuse. The Park City Council believes Summit County should reimburse the municipality for costs incurred by keeping the city dump open. According to a consensus reached by the council, the city's dump will be operated Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday afternoon. |