35,000 Drums Of Waste Pulled From Pasco Landfill

PASCO, WA — The Washington Department of Ecology is celebrating the end of a 30-year effort to clean toxic waste from the Pasco Landfill Superfund site.

The site, located about 1.5 miles outside of Pasco, covers around 200 acres of land. It opened in 1958, and between 1972 and 1975 it took in thousands of tons of hazardous industrial waste. The waste was buried in the ground, but began seeping out toxic chemicals into the nearby soil and groundwater. The Department of Ecology took over the site in 1991, and closed the landfill in 2001.

In the two decades since, crews have been working steadily to clear out the lingering industrial waste — until this month, when the Department of Ecology announced it had finished the work. In that time, crews removed more than 35,000 buried drums of industrial waste.

“Bringing this decades-long cleanup to a close is a pivotal and encouraging moment for the community,” said Jeremy Schmidt, Ecology’s Pasco Landfill site manager in a news release celebrating the project's completion. “Safe removal of the drums permanently eliminates long-term environmental risk to communities in Franklin County and the City of Pasco.”

All told, the Department of Ecology says its teams removed a combined 23,500 tons of waste, all of which has since been hauled to out-of-state facilities specifically designed to dispose of hazardous materials.

“The permanent drum waste removal at Zone A was the largest and one of the final, necessary cleanup actions at the site,” said Schmidt. “Removal of the waste will ensure that human health and the environment are protected in perpetuity.”

Now that the waste has been removed, crews will be placing a cover on the excavated landfill. The area will also be restricted, and limitations will be placed on how the polluted land can be used going forward.

“This was truly a monumental effort, and the safe and thorough execution of the drum removal could only have occurred through extensive collaboration between local governments, businesses, contractors, and the entities responsible for cleanup. Ecology is extremely thankful for the effort of all who contributed to this success,” Schmidt said.

DOE's experts will also continue to monitor the quality of the nearby groundwater. The groundwater protection area in eastern Pasco will remain in place, though the Department of Ecology says that, hopefully, they will be able to lift that restriction soon as lingering toxins are flushed out.