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Misinformation threatens Page Ranch truth

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Ashley Weaver

How can Steve Holland, director of UA Risk Management and Safety, try to talk his way out of the toxic waste site debacle? Claiming that there is "no contamination" in the water underneath the overgrazed Page Ranch landfill, Holland is avoiding some basic factual information that lies deep within that area. Either he has been horribly misinformed in his knowledge of the Page-Trowbridge Landfill for all the years he has been dealing with the issue, or he is merely telling the public what they want to hear, but not what they need to hear.

From the start of monitoring in 1983 onwards, the UA has continued to find contaminated water in the landfill wells. Findings of heavy methylene chloride and toluene (a solvent in gasoline), indicate volatile organic solvents are aquifer bound. The water was contaminated at maximum contaminant levels, indicating that Federal Water Protection Laws must intervene.

In 1992, the UA found the levels of bromoform (a liver-damaging industrial solvent), methylene chloride, and 1,1,1, -trichloroethane (a non-biodegradable compound known to leach into groundwater) to be higher than maximum containment levels, which was attributed to lab contamination. But the reagent blank showed 11 parts per billion (ppb) for cancer-causing methylene chloride, while Well 3 showed 26 ppb, and Well 4 showed 25 ppb. If the lab contaminated a blank with 11 ppb of methylene chloride, how does the compound double from the lab error without actual contamination? When people noticed, the UA raised its maximum containment levels from 2 ppb to 10 ppb for methylene chloride, and raised all the maximum containment levels for tested compounds by as much as five times previous levels. Water contaminants haven't been corrected as Holland claims. Instead, they have been hidden.

Now, contamination has seeped into the alluvial plane from years of rainfall. The UA didn't exhume the material, nor did they put Flexible Membrane Liners (FML) interspersed with solid clay over the cells. Holland states that "the permeability of the installed cap is equal to or greater than what it would have been with a plastic liner," and that "even a pebble sticking up in the wrong place could've punctured that thing." The installed cap is a mixture of the contaminated dirt taken from the landfill site mixed with clay of questionable quality, making more dirt.

Apparently, in the UA's twisted logic, dirt would be more effective than an FML because it would be cheaper. Plastic Fusion Fabricators, which makes FMLs, states on their Web site that for applications such as the Page Ranch landfill, "high-density polyethylene is resistant to most of the acids, bases, oils, heavy metals, alcohols, salts and other substances found in wastes. It is strong, flexible, and adapts easily to most situations. Sheets are available in a variety of widths...seams between sheets are fused together, preventing leaks and ground water contamination." FMLs "are available in various thicknesses from 20 to 140 mils...are tough, with an elongation-to-break factor that typically exceeds 700 percent." In other words, a misplaced pebble won't do a darn thing.

But the UA absurdly claims that dirt is a better barrier, keeping damaging information under the guise of "safe" toxicity. When urban sprawl reaches Falcon Valley and Page Ranch, what was predicted in 1993 by Steve Calloway of Federal Permits, Hydrology - "Subsequent moisture from...civic applications will continue to drive the contaminates by flushing the contaminated intervals" - will come to fruition. With Holland at the helm, we are riding on this Carnival cruise ship into very choppy waters.

But the public knows about the UA's harmful activities now. People are watching, and for their sake, the UA needs to worry about the health and safety of the people instead of their pocketbooks.