Clearfield Rejects Tainted-Soil Plan

By Joseph M. Dougherty Deseret Morning News

CLEARFIELD — The Utah Transit Authority has scratched plans to treat petroleum-contaminated soil at a site in Clearfield, following a request from the City Council.

Instead, the dirt may be taken to a treatment site in North Salt Lake near the intersection of Interstate 15 and Interstate 215.

Council members had worried that the contaminated soil would leach into the site, which Clearfield wants to develop, as well as nearby areas.

Davis County Division of Environmental Health director Dalane McGarvey said the soil cleanup, known as land farming, is common and was approved for the site by the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

Land farming involves aerating the soil to allow bacteria in the soil to consume contaminants. Afterward, the soil can be used as fill.

UTA’s commuter-rail construction manager Steve Meyer said the soil was contaminated from a leaking underground fuel-storage tank. The tank, at a Tri-Mart gas station on Layton’s Main Street, was near a future park-and-ride lot in Layton. The soil needed to be cleaned up somewhere, and because UTA owns the 70 acres in Clearfield, that land would have been a suitable spot, Meyer said.

“We thought that would be good,” he said. “We could monitor it closely.”

The Clearfield City Council became aware of the tainted dirt when a resident mentioned soil remediation during an open house for the rail stop’s design.

“If it was so up-front and innocent, why did we have to find out by accident?” asked Clearfield Councilwoman Kathryn Murray.

Meyer said nearby residents were notified by mail, and an e-mail was sent to city offices, but it may have been blocked by city servers.

“They can say they did it,” Murray said. “But we didn’t get any notice of it.”

Murray said she was concerned that contaminants could leach into soil at the development site if protective measures weren’t taken. Within the next 18 months, the city plans to work with UTA’s developer for the 70 acres where a FrontRunner commuter-rail stop will be located and where the dirt was destined to be treated.

Councilman Doyle Sprague was concerned about the timing. “There was no guarantee how long that dirt was going to sit there,” he said.

Murray worried that the polluted soil could deter developers from being interested in the site. “Is that going to affect how a developer will want to come in and develop that area, if they know there’s contaminated soil there?” she asked.

With the City Council’s concerns in mind, UTA and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, which manages the remediation of underground storage-tank sites, agreed to look for another location.

It would have cost the Department of Environmental Quality’s Petroleum Storage Tank Trust Fund about $90,000 to get the soil to the Clearfield site, about five miles away from the Layton site, said John Menatti, who manages the fund.

Money for the fund comes from a one-half cent surcharge on every gallon of gas sold in Utah and is to be used to clean up leaking underground petroleum-storage tanks. Currently, the fund has a balance of about $11 million, which is being spent on 300 leaking storage-tank sites in Utah.

A site near the Salt Lake County Landfill where this type of soil remediation often takes place would have cost $150,000, he said.

The North Salt Lake site, which is owned by UTA, would cost about $100,000. The site won’t be finalized until neighbors and the city are notified and UTA officials can receive public comment on it, Menatti said.

E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com

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