October 17, 2002
News Specialist Stacey Butler Reporting
(Salt Lake City-KSL News) -- More barrels filled with an unknown
substance turn up today as the mystery continues into just who
is dumping exactly what, all over the Salt Lake Valley.
While police are tracking leads, property owners are getting
slapped with the bill.
The phone calls from business owners started coming into the
Health Department two days ago. Today the calls continued.
Twenty-two more barrels of mystery stuff was discovered today
at two more locations. One in South Salt Lake and another right
here in Salt Lake City.
George Glighttli first noticed nine suspicious looking barrels
on his property yesterday, but assumed a tenant left them there,
until last night.
"On the news last night I saw some barrels that they were
concerned about, and they looked exactly like that writing and
everything on them. I planned to call police, and so I did,"
Glighttli said.
Today
fire investigators showed up to test the barrels in this parking
lot, just after they tested 13 barrels dumped a couple of
miles away in Salt Lake City.
Altogether, 40 barrels of mystery sludge, dumped illegally
in five different business parking lots from South Salt Lake
to North Salt Lake.
Yesterday investigators discovered 18 similar drums, six of
them just feet from Hess Beesley's small auto repair shop
in North Salt Lake.
"It's more disturbing that it was so close to the city
water system. If it was leaking, it could have been right
in the sewer," Beesley said.
Preliminary tests by Hazmat teams show whatever is in the
drums isn't volatile, flammable, corrosive or an immediate
hazard to the public.
That's the good news.
"Property owners are the ones who end up being responsible
for the cost of the cleanup," said Captain Kevin Bowen
with the South Salt Lake Fire Department.
And the
Health Department says cleanup is costly.
"Estimates
from some of the cleanup companies have been $300 per drum
to dispose of them," said Steven Beach with the Salt
Lake County Health Department.
For each
business owner that's a minimum of $1500. But if the barrels
leak or are in rusty containers and cannot easily be moved,
cleanup for some property owners may reach $10,000 by some
private cleanup company estimates.
"I'm angry. It's irresponsible on the part of whoever
did it. It could put a business like this under. The cost
of cleanup for this -- we can't afford something like that,"
Beesley said.
"Someone can't dump this many barrels of whatever this
product is and get away with it," Bowen said.
Investigators
believe the same person is responsible for dumping all 40 drums.
They're still awaiting lab results to determine exactly what
the substance is. For now, the EPA, the county Health Department,
fire investigators and three police agencies are looking for
the suspect who dumped the drums.
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