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Show City fears delays may result in random dumping A contest offering $50,000 to anyone in Summit County who can successfully select another county dump site is not joke to the Park City Council which fears delays in the creation of a landfill could lead to indiscriminate dumping and unbud-geted unbud-geted expenses. Park City Public Works Director Jerry Gibbs told the council Jan. 31 that the city's dump is scheduled to close Feb. 28. He said the closure was originally scheduled Jan. 1, 1985 to coincide with the scheduled openning of the county's dump in Brown's Canyon. However, the county's proposal to create a landfill in Brown's Canyon ran aground last fall when angry property owners filed suit alleging the site selection was illegal, last week, the Brown's Canyon property owners, lead by Salt Lake City resident Ed Rogers and Davis County resident Robert Garff, called attention to their plight in the area media with the pick-a-dump contest. Earlier this week those property owners submitted to the state Bureau of Solid and Hazardous Waste a privately commissioned engineering study refuting the county's claim that Brown's Canyon met sanitary landfill criteria. The new survey, conducted by Salt Lake City-based Bingham Engineering, Engineer-ing, indicates that Brown's Canyon soils are permeable and refuse could combine with the relatively high water table there to contaminate the Weber and Provo drainages that feed the Wasatch Front from Ogden to Utah County, according to Rogers. The new data will delay' the bureau's preliminary approval of a dump site, said Ken Alkema, director of the state's Division of Environmental Health. He explained that the bureau can not give final approval until Summit County purchases the land. The county, however, wants an indication from the bureau before beginning condemnation con-demnation proceedings. The bureau will analyze the new report and compare it with data from an earlier engineering study by Forsgren and Perkins, also a Salt Lake City engineering firm. Those delays may mean that residents and construction crews in Park City will have to drive 30 miles to the county's dump i.i Heneler The city council fears construction companies will be unwilling to make the long and expensive drive and begin dumping indiscriminately along county roads, including the one through Brown's Canyon. According to Gibbs, it could take the county as long as nine months to create the landfill after the issuance of the state's permit. At that rate, the Brown's Canyon facility, or any other new landfill, would not be ready in time for the onset of construction season this spring. Park City's current dump is located on land owned by United Park City Mines. "It is only out of United Park's good graces that we have a dump at all," said City Manager Arlene Loble. That facility is currently near rapacity. The operation of the Park City dump costs the municipality $11,000 a month. On Jan. 1 the county began taxing Park City residents at the rate of 1 mill to pick up garbage and operate an additional landfill. Park City Mayor Jack Green admonished the council not to get "too enthusiatic" about solving what he called a "county problem." s "You're all running scared be- cause those people put an ad in the j paper," Green said. He added that it J Park City found a solution to the f problem the county might not go forward with its plan to create a new dump. |