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Show EPA starts search for parties to pay for Superfund study by CHRISTOPHER SMART Record staff writer The Environmental Protection Agency this week launched a search for parties that could be held financially finan-cially responsible for the cleanup of mill tailings in the Prospector , Square area. William Geise, director of the Denver-based EPA Region VIII, said Tuesday his office has begun the process of trying to decide who will pay for the study and possible cleanup of the mill tailings should the Park City site gain Superfund listing a classification the city is fighting. The city has filed a Freedom of Information In-formation request to determine, among other things, whether any current Prospector business or , home owners were being considered as responsible parties. The Prospector Square commercial commer-cial district and its residential neighbor, Prospector Park, were built upon a mill tailings site dating back to the late 1800s. The tailings contain high levels of lead, cadmium and arsenic and officials of-ficials were concerned about the health of children who play in the soil as well as whether the heavy metals cpuld migrate into the groundwater. The area has been proposed for the EPA's National Priorities List, which would make the site eligible for Superfund money to study potential poten-tial environmental hazards. It could be named officially to Superfund following a 60-day comment period ending Nov. 18. Park City officials oppose the listing, saying it is based on irresponsibly ir-responsibly gathered information and casts a stigma on the town as a whole (see related story) . If the area is named offically to the Superfund list, any studies or remedial action will have to be paid for by whomever the EPA finds to be accountable. Prospector businesses and residents to date have spent $1.4 million on landscaping aimed at covering the tailings to alleviate any potential problems with airborne tailings dust. The municipality also has- completed com-pleted streambed work on Silver Creek designed to keep any tailings from entering the waterway. That work was done with a grant of federal money chanelled through state agencies. Further remedial action may not be required, said Geise. He said the option of removing the tailings was "remote." Geise said the agency will develop a history of ownership of the area to establish what he called "potential responsible parties." He said that usually those individuals, groups or businesses fit into one of four categories. Those groups include parties that are financially viable and thought to have some direct relationship to the potential environmental hazard. The second category involves individuals in-dividuals or businesses that are no long in existence or financially viable. The third group consists of parties that contributed small amounts of waste to the Superfund EPA to A1 6 1 developer has agreed to pay for studies to determine if an environmental en-vironmental hazard exists. The development firm also may be held responsible for the costs of future groundwater monitoring there and any cleanup found to be necessary, Geise said. Park City officials believe that Prospector business and home owners could be held responsible for the study and cleanup costs. Assistant City Attorney Craig Smith said that in one case, the residents of a trailer park were found to be financially responsible for cleanup of a Superfund site upon which their mobile homes rested. In the case of the United States vs. Metate Asbestos Corp., the U.S. District Court in Tucson, Ariz., found that the trailer park fit the definition for potential responsible parties under the Superfund law. While the court found that Mountain Moun-tain View Mobile Home Estates was a "facility," and therefore could be responsible financially under Super-fund Super-fund law, it did not order the residents to pay in that ruling. Smith has filed a Freedom of Information In-formation request that asks, among other things, for the list of potential responsible parties for any Prospector Prospec-tor study or cleanup. EPA from A1 site. And the final category is made up of innocent third parties, Geise said. In Prospector's case, the residents and businesse owners could be considered con-sidered innocent third parties, Geise said. He said under Superfund law, the EPA can use discretion as to whether those innocent third parties can be held financially responsible for study and cleanup, he said. If the EPA cannot find a viable mining company that is responsible for the tailings, and the developer of Prospector Square is no longer in business, Geise said the EPA will examine ex-amine three other factors. He said the EPA will determine whether the residents knew there was a potential environmental hazard before they moved in, whether they did anything to aggravate ag-gravate the problem and whether they profited by the situation. .Geise said that, depending on the complexity of the legal records surrounding sur-rounding the tailings and the Prospector Pro-spector development, the search for responsible parties could take from six weeks to six months. In a similar matter in Aspen, Colo., the EPA has reached a negotiated agreement with a developer in a Superfund area known as Smuggler. Geise said the i |