Toxic waste cleanups complete

Off and on over the past 12 years, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality has been cleaning up the former Portland Cement sites in Salt Lake and Davis counties. Now the project is finished.

Cleaning the sites, later purchased by Lone Star Industries, cost $32 million overall.

The latest work was a $3.3 million cleanup project at two 15-acre sites, at 9300 West and 600 North about one mile south of the Great Salt Lake, and at 2500 W. Center Street in North Salt Lake in Davis County, near the Jordan River.

At these sites, state officials said, workers removed 40,000 tons of cement kiln dust and bricks containing arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium and molybdenum.

Earlier work focused largely on 71 acres near 1000 S. Redwood Road in Salt Lake City, in a Superfund project.

"This ties up the loose ends of contamination left behind in the Salt Lake Valley from Portland Cement and Lone Star Industries," said Bob O'Brien, project manager for the DEQ's Division of Environmental Response and Remediation, quoted in a press release.

Envirocon of Missoula, Mo., did the latest cleanup work, taking nine months to complete the project. Bricks contaminated with chromium were deposited at a landfill.