Park City Councilor Nann Worel declined to join other elected officials in signing a statement addressing City Hall’s concept to build a facility along S.R. 248 to store contaminated soils. Worel says the statement “did not go far enough” in explaining the City Hall process regarding the facility.
Park Record file photo
A member of the Park City Council opted against joining the other elected officials in signing a statement centered on the controversial concept to build a facility along the S.R. 248 entryway to store soils containing silver-mining era contaminants.
City Councilor Nann Worel’s name was left off the one-page statement, which was published under the municipal logo. Mayor Andy Beerman and the other four members of the City Council signed the statement.
Park Record file photo
City Hall wants to execute a public-relations effort to outline the concept to build a facility along the S.R. 248 entryway to store soils containing contaminants from Park City’s silver-mining era, outlining a 60-day effort designed to explain the idea as many Parkites appear to be concerned about the prospects of a project.
Officials have taken steps to build what is known as a repository on municipal land located at the S.R. 248-Richardson Flat Road intersection. Soils containing contaminants like lead and arsenic would be stored in the facility. The repository would ultimately have space for 140,000 cubic-yards of materials and have an estimated construction cost of approximately $2.7 million.
initially indicated that storing contaminated soils at the facility rather than transporting them to Tooele County would save the municipal government $4.4 million over the lifespan of the repository. The cost savings was actually estimated at $14.4 million. An updated estimate released Saturday by City Hall indicates the cost savings would be approximately $17.9 million. References to the financial figures have been removed from this editorial.
Call it a toxic situation.
Parkites in recent weeks have sounded the alarm on a City Hall plan to construct a facility near the S.R. 248 entryway to store soils containing contaminants dating to Park City’s mining era. Critics have raised questions about the process the municipal government has taken as it considers the repository, as well as concerns about the health and environmental effects of building that kind of facility within city limits.
Many years ago, I proposed a system of growth management that seemed a lot more effective and efficient than relying on zoning and market influences. Zoning is a pretty limited tool. The market, of course, is the market given to wild swings and gyrations, too hot sometimes, too cold at others, and very difficult for anybody to predict, let alone regulate. There had to be a better way.
Park Record columnist Tom Clyde.
At the time, I proposed a simple, yet elegant solution. The proposal was to put an auto wrecking yard on the entrance to town. The site I had in mind is now the McLeod Creek neighborhood, but way back when, it was vacant land on the very edge of town. The topography offered some advantages because there were low spots that were hard to see from the highway and high spots that were impossible to miss driving into town.
Don’t poison Park City
Park City may soon be home to a brand new poisonous, dangerous and ill-conceived toxic waste site. You won’t see that in a brochure. Just what we don’t need is more toxic dumping in Park City. If you know a little bit about the history Park City you know that it has been an environmental disaster. The dumping that has gone on over the last 100-plus years is shameful. Maybe previous generations didn’t know what they were doing, but today we have got to have our eyes wide open and we have to be very careful. What is going on right now with Park City’s (not Summit County’s) proposed dump in between the Rail Trail and Round Valley, along the S.R. 248 corridor and parks and wetlands, has got to be stopped. There has not been proper public engagement, there has not been environmental oversight, there has not been ONE ARTICLE in The Park Record as of Saturday’s edition. And the public comment period for the department of environmental quality was schedu