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Contact: Marion M. Galant
Community Involvement Manager
Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division
(303) 692-3304 or 1-888-569-1831
For Immediate Release Tuesday, November 30, 2004
LOWRY LANDFILL SUPERFUND SITE ENGINEERING DESIGN
CHANGE PROPOSED
DENVER- The City and County of Denver and Waste
Management of Colorado Inc. have asked the Colorado Department of Public
Health and Environment to review an engineering design and operations plan
to increase the slope of the cover on Section 6 of the Lowry Landfill
Superfund Site to improve surface water drainage and to prevent water
penetration or accumulation.
Also known as the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, the facility is located at
3500 S. Gun Club Road in Aurora.
Lowry Landfill is not the location currently used for
waste disposal, nor is it associated with the former Lowry Air Force Base
in Denver and Aurora.
An informational public meeting on the proposed plan
is scheduled from 4-7 p.m. on Thursday, December 9, at Cherokee Trail High
School, 25901 E. Arapahoe Road, in Aurora. Representatives of the involved
regulatory agencies, the City and County of Denver and Waste Management
will provide information and will be available to talk individually with
citizens.
The plan proposes to increase the slope of the
four-foot thick cover on the existing landfill in order to improve surface
water drainage and prevent water penetration or accumulation on the cover.
Under this proposal, the slope of the landfill cover would be increased to
roughly five percent by removing and stockpiling two feet of the existing
cover and by then placing an additional 5.6 million cubic yards of inert
material and construction and demolition debris on top of the landfill.
The cover then would be replaced and reconstructed. No
municipal solid waste disposal is proposed, and only limited industrial
waste would be accepted and approved for disposal on a case-by-case basis.
The disposal of inert materials, which would be limited to construction
materials such as masonry, concrete, brick and rock, could continue for
from 7-to-14 years if approved.
The Department of Public Health and Environment’s Hazardous Materials and
Waste Management Division has reviewed the proposal for technical merit,
for compliance with the state's solid waste regulations, and to assure that
the proposal will not negatively impact human health, the environment or
the Superfund remedy.
The Denver Regional Office of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and Tri-County Health Department, which provides public
health services in Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, also have reviewed
the proposal to ensure that it contains adequate measures to prevent a
release of hazardous substances and to ensure it will not negatively impact
the Superfund cleanup activities. Comments from all three agencies have
been incorporated in the October 2004 draft currently available for review.
Interested citizens may review the new Engineering
Design and Operations Plan during regular business hours through January
13, 2005, at:
Tri-County Health Department
7000 East Belleview, Suite 301
Greenwood Village, Colorado 80111-1628
(303) -220-9200
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division
Records Center
4300 Cherry Creek Drive South, Bldg.B2
Denver, Colorado 80246-1530
(303) 692-3331
Written comments should be sent to Lee Pivonka, the
division’s project officer for the Lowry Landfill Superfund Site, or Roger
Doak, a member of the division’s Solid Waste Unit staff, by close of
business on January 13, 2005. For further information, call Pivonka at
(303) 692-3453 or Doak at (303) 692-3437, or toll-free at 1-888-569-1831
The mailing address for Pivonka and Doak is Hazardous Materials and Waste
Management Division, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment,
4300 Cherry Creek Drive South, Denver, 80246.
The comments will be reviewed by the Solid Waste Unit,
which then will recommend to the division’s Superfund Unit whether the
proposed plan should be approved. The final decision on the proposed plan
will be made jointly by the Superfund Unit and the EPA’s Denver Regional
Office.
The City and County of Denver first operated the Lowry
Landfill in the mid-1960s under a certificate of designation issued by
Arapahoe County. From 1965 to 1980, liquid industrial wastes were disposed
of in approximately 78 unlined pits at the site along with industrial and
municipal wastes. In 1984, EPA designated Lowry Landfill as a Superfund
site and began an investigation of the environmental problems there.
Disposal of municipal solid waste continued in Section 6 until 1990, when
commercial activity was halted to facilitate the Lowry Landfill Superfund
investigation and a containment remedy. The exception is asbestos, which
continues to be disposed of at the site in one specifically designed cell.
On March 10, 1994, the Department of Public Health and
Environment and the EPA issued the Record of Decision that formally
selected a plan to contain and treat contaminated ground water, surface
water and landfill gas on the site to protect public health and the
environment. The selected plan also requires landfill solids to be
contained at the site and the landfill cover to be maintained.
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