Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Environmental Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public warns county about use of contaminated Ralston Ponds soil to rebuild drinking-water canal channel
Summary
Anne Lafoon told Jefferson County commissioners March 11 that the developer of the 5950 McIntyre project plans to use soil from the former Ralston wastewater ponds — historically associated with radioactive waste — to rebuild a canal channel, and she urged additional testing and permit limits.
Anne Lafoon, a resident of unincorporated Jefferson County, told commissioners on March 11 that the grading permit and soil-source disclosures for the 5950 McIntyre development are inadequate and raise significant health concerns.
Lafoon said the site is “extremely contaminated,” citing historical disposal of radioactive waste at Ralston Ponds beginning in the 1950s and the presence of heavy metals, uranium and trichloroethylene (TCE) in subsurface and groundwater. She said attendees at a Board of Appeals hearing the prior day were told the developer plans to use soils from the Ralston wastewater ponds to rebuild a drinking-water canal channel — information she said was not disclosed in Appendix A of the grading permit application.
Lafoon told the commissioners and staff that the soils cited in permit materials were tested in 1997, before EPA testing standards released in 2005, and that other studies (which she summarized) showed arsenic levels “20 to 40,000 times the allowable limit.” She said the Board of Appeals said the issue was outside the board’s authority to determine whether the state environmental regulator (CDPHE) has made the correct cleanup decision. She requested that the county (1) prevent the current 12-acre grading permit from being amended to cover the rest of the 55-acre site, and (2) use county influence with regulators to require updated Phase II testing before excavation down to the Arapahoe formation.
The transcript records that the Board of Appeals heard the community’s appeal of the grading permit the previous day and that roughly 200 to 300 people attended. The transcript does not record any formal county action in response to Lafoon’s comments during the March 11 meeting.
