Toxic chromic acid dumped at Lakeside green box site, closure continues

The illegal dumping of a hazardous material recently at the Lakeside green-box refuse site illustrates the need for fenced and staffed sites, Flathead County Public Works Director Dave Prunty said.

Prunty told the Solid Waste District Board about the Lakeside incident at last Tuesday’s monthly board meeting, pointing out the county already has spent about $6,000 on cleanup and soil sampling and still has to pay to have the contaminated garbage hauled away to a hazardous materials site.

On Jan. 9 a county garbage truck driver noticed yellow and red liquid draining into a sump at the Lakeside site. The substance was analyzed and determined to be a five-gallon bucket of extremely toxic chromic acid, which is used as an intermediate in chromium plating and in ceramic glazes and colored glass.

Prunty quickly closed the Lakeside site and emergency responders were notified. The Lakeside-Somers Fire Department brought a truck to the site, and the Kalispell Fire Department’s regional hazardous materials team was called in for consultation.

The Kalispell team directed the county to apply sand over the toxic liquid.

The state Department of Environmental Quality also was called and state officials requested the county to pull soil samples, Prunty said.

Because the driver already had emptied the green box that contained the chromic acid, roughly 2,000 pounds of garbage had to be quarantined at the landfill.

“That garbage is now hazardous waste and we’ll have to pack it up” and have it removed, Prunty said. “This incident falls in with what I’ve been saying about the need to control these sites.”