The soil piles at Treasure Mountain will be removed starting Dec. 17, 2023, to Dec. 29, 2023, during the district's winter break.
However, the Park City School District said the removal might not be finished by the end of the break; it depends on weather conditions. If the removal isn't finished, it will continue during the district's February break from Feb. 20, 2024, to Feb. 24, 2024. If more time is still needed, the district can continue the removal during spring break from April 10, 2024, to April 14, 2024.
The soil will be moved to landfills that are approved to accept construction waste.
During removal, the district said the Treasure Mountain school grounds will be closed to everyone except removal crews. That includes the parking lot. It said the closure is for public safety and to make sure the removal is as efficient as possible.
The soil is considered contaminated as it contains heightened levels of lead and arsenic.
The removal of the soil piles is long-awaited.
Mike Tanner is the chief operations officer for the Park City School District. He said the larger of the piles was moved behind the school in the spring of 2017 and the smaller pile was moved in the spring of 2022. They were stored there to facilitate construction projects at McPolin Elementary.
Tanner said the soil was moved with the Department of Environmental Quality’s knowledge. However, the DEQ said it wasn't aware of the project until after the dirt was moved.
In December of 2022 the district received two letters from the DEQ. One stated the piles' placement violated city code. The other letter explained Utah environmental code requires special permission to store soil piles longer than 90 days.
Back in 2016, Treasure Mountain entered into an environmental covenant with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The covenant established rules about how to manage the soils at Treasure Mountain Junior High, and is stricter than Park City’s soils ordinance. Storing the soils there for more than 30 days was a violation of that covenant.
Tanner said the problem was school district staff lost sight of the covenant.
“The Park City School District accepts responsibility for the fact that we violated the covenant, and we did not do so willingly. We did not do so because of incompetence, we did so because of the legitimate dropping of the ball of the knowledge that existed in the covenant,” Tanner said. “That happened for multiple reasons. We had a change in personnel at Park City School District, there were changes in personnel at Park City Municipal, and those files that had that information got lost in that process of the transition.”
The EPA told the Park City School District it was required to submit a “Materials Management Plan” or face enforcement measures.
That plan must include “specific instructions for the removal process and requirements for the qualifications of the removal vendors and project managers.” It also contains instructions for inspections during the removal process.
The MMP was originally due on Jan. 9, 2023. At that time, the school district requested a 90-day extension and received it, but did not meet that deadline either.
As of October, Tanner said the plan was in the process of being reviewed.
Tanner said the DEQ is expected to formally sign off on the plan this week.
The estimated cost to remove the soil piles is $1.5 million to $2 million.
