Hazardous-waste hearings scheduled

TOOELE — For many who live in Tooele County, accepting hazardous waste into their borders is about providing jobs for the people who live there.

To activists, the issue becomes one of what's best for the environment and people in Utah as a whole.

Both sides of the waste issue are sounding off during several public hearings being held by a group of legislators who make up the Hazardous Waste Regulation and Tax Policy Task Force.

The task force is in the midst of a two-year study to determine whether to allow "hotter" low-level radioactive waste into Utah. The group also will look at how fees and taxes affect the hazardous-waste industry.

"If I am to walk away with one thing, it's that you care about economic issues," Rep. Pat Jones, D-Cottonwood Heights, told Tooele County residents at the first hearing in June.

Senate chairman Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, noted that an overwhelming majority of the nearly 30 people who testified under oath in Tooele were there to support the hazardous-waste industry.

"They are the people whose families live here," he said. "To me, that's pivotal."

Jason Groenewold, director of Families Against Incinerator Risk, was quick to point out that the deck was stacked with people who work either with Envirocare of Utah or Clean Harbors.

The mayors of Tooele, Grantsville and Stockton, two county commissioners, the sheriff, a school board member and a man representing both Tooele County Emergency Management and the Tooele County Chamber of Commerce also showed their support for the business of hazardous waste.

"If you know how to treat hazardous waste, it's no different than electricity or anything else," said Stockton Mayor Barry Thomas.

In a county where the unemployment rate lingers around 9 percent, the fear now is that higher fees and taxes on the hazardous-waste industry in Utah could snuff out a major employer and leave many without jobs.

Thomas' brother, Kendall, a member of the Tooele County School Board, linked hazardous waste workers losing their jobs with a decline in students' test scores, which he says have been on the rise recently.

Emergency management experts said Tooele County is prepared for any hazardous waste emergency and that residents are actually safer because of Envirocare's commitment to safety.

But others say not enough is being done to consider what will become of places like Envirocare 100 years down the road and beyond when the business has closed but the hazardous waste is still sitting in the West Desert.

And Claire Geddes of Utah Legislative Watch proposed regulatory controls similar to those in the utilities industry so that legislators have access to all information important toward making decisions that affect the hazardous waste industry.

Public hearings are scheduled for Sept. 18 in Price, Sept. 19 in Blanding and Oct. 14 in Salt Lake City. Their time and location have yet to be set.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com