Park City Hall records show Todd Hansen, director of building and grounds for the district, told officials in 2021 he believed the soil piles behind Treasure Mountain Junior High to be contaminated and he planned to test and remove them from the campus that year.
That echoed the district’s 2019 facilities master plan, which described health and safety concerns at the school and estimated around $2 million-$4 million to remove the soil.
But the piles stayed, and grew larger as excavation work continued. Like other parts of Park City, they’re contaminated with lead and arsenic from mines and subject to environmental regulations.
After the state Department of Environmental Quality learned of the piles in September of 2022, it notified the district it was violating the city soils ordinance and state code due to the length of time they’ve been there and the possibility they contain hazardous waste.
The school district disagrees.
District Chief Operating Officer Mike Tanner said the DEQ is mistaken because the area isn’t subject to city code. In response, a DEQ spokesperson said the agency is focused on bringing the district into compliance and stands firmly behind its violation notice.
A school district spokesperson told KPCW this week they’re working with an environmental consultant and will comply with future mandates. District officials and board members declined to answer questions about why the soil piles haven’t been removed.
The district also says it’s exploring using the soil to fill holes left from future demolition work at that site, but the DEQ says it told them long ago that that won’t be allowed. That mirrors Hansen’s communication to city officials back in 2021 in which he told them “the plan was to use the dirt for backfill as part of the school master plan but that plan is not happening.”
A recent district web post also claimed no concerns were raised about the piles in the six years they’ve been there. That was removed after media questions about its accuracy.
The disagreement with the DEQ is just one entanglement the district faces related to expanding four campuses. It’s also haggling with Summit County government over whether the county has authority to oversee parts of the work, require certain permits and issue stop work orders, as it did at Jeremy Ranch Elementary last summer.
The school district filed a request for an advisory opinion with a state ombudsman’s office that handles land use and property rights disputes, and is now awaiting an answer.
Despite all the hiccups, Tanner says construction costs are not overbudget.
But that conflicts with what the school district's lawyers reported to the ombudsman’s office. A lawyer’s statement to that office several times references that county permit requirements had caused a “significant increase in costs,” which one district official told KPCW means millions of dollars so far.