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Riley County OKs Phase 1 cleanup of hazardous waste at county-owned site; transfers truck to rural fire
Summary
Commissioners approved up to phase 1 testing and overpacking of hazardous barrels found on a county parcel and agreed to reassign a 2015 Ford pickup from the Noxious Weed Department to Riley County Rural Fire.
Riley County commissioners on March 13 approved initial sampling and overpacking work at a county-owned site where nine metal barrels of hazardous material were discovered, and they agreed to reassign a 2015 Ford F-150 from the Noxious Weed Department to Riley County Rural Fire.
The county's Noxious Weed director, Mike Bowler, told commissioners that Clean Harbors provided a two-part estimate for the immediate work: sampling/overpacking and laboratory analytics. Bowler said the vendor's estimate for phase 1 (sampling and overpacking plus analytics) was presented to the commission and that Clean Harbors had a state contract price through the regional buying program. Commissioners voted to authorize payment for phase 1 from the county's CIP fund so staff can move forward with testing and containment before transport or disposal decisions are made.
Bowler said the barrels are rusted and exposed; technicians will overpack them and obtain a chemical profile that will determine transport and disposal requirements. He described phase 3 — soil remediation — as a low-probability but high-cost possibility (citing other county cleanups as examples). Bowler said he expects to be able to absorb likely disposal costs for the materials themselves in his department budget but asked the commission to fund the initial sampling and containment through CIP.
Separately, Bowler reported that one of the department's pickup trucks suffered catastrophic engine failure during winter operations. The commission approved transferring unit 118 (a 2015 Ford F-150) from the Noxious Weed Department to Riley County Rural Fire; commissioners noted the vehicle would be more useful to Rural Fire and that auctioning the vehicle would likely recover only a modest amount compared with the value of immediate reassignment.
The actions taken do not commit the commission to soil remediation beyond the approved phase 1 sampling and overpacking; further steps will depend on test results and required manifests or profiles for disposal.
