After years of legal challenges, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that, yes, La Plata County does have to clean up the toxic chemicals seeping out of the Bayfield landfill as required by the state health department.
La Plata County owns the landfill on County Road 223 west of Bayfield, which was used as a dump for municipal solid waste for years before it closed more than 25 years ago. In 2004 and 2005, groundwater monitoring showed elevated levels of vinyl chloride, which can cause an array of illnesses, at the site.
After a decade of remediation efforts, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said the county needed to expand its remediation efforts. The county resisted, and the two battled it out in the court system for years. The Supreme Court’s June 7 decision sided with CDPHE.
“(CDPHE) still has the authority to bring an enforcement action against the county, as an owner or operator of an allegedly non-compliant, abandoned landfill,” the court’s decision said.
“While we are disappointed, La Plata County respects the decision of the court,” said Chuck Stevens, La Plata County manager. “We will evaluate our options to ensure the best outcomes for the citizens of La Plata County.”
CDPHE did not respond Friday to requests for comment.
The Bayfield landfill is home to 100,000 cubic yards of municipal waste, located on about 15 of the site’s 32 acres, according to a 2015 report in The Durango Herald.
The site opened in the 1950s and operated until 1994, when it was replaced with the current transfer station. In the mid-2000s, elevated vinyl chloride was detected in two of four groundwater monitoring wells near the site.
Extremely high levels of vinyl chloride can damage the liver, lungs, kidneys, nerves and heart, among other adverse health reactions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Buried refuse was emitting gas, which transmitted vinyl chloride into groundwater flowing toward County Road 223 and the east half of the Lions Club gun range.
In 2015, CDPHE asked La Plata County to expand its remediation efforts at the site. After the county declined to do so, CDPHE ordered the remediation, according to court documents.
In the court hearings that followed, La Plata County said the department’s order was barred under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act.
It also argued the Solid Wastes Disposal Sites and Enforcement Act applies to “persons” and the county is not a “person” as defined in the statute.
An administrative law judge sided with CDPHE, then on appeal by La Plata County, the district court sided with La Plata County.
In 2020, the court of appeals reversed the district court’s ruling and upheld the CDPHE order.
“(A) different interpretation of ‘person’ would create an absurd result by allowing counties to avoid complying with the SWA and to evade oversight by the department,” the court of appeals said in its decision.
The Colorado Supreme Court not only sided with CDPHE on June 7, but it said La Plata County is not entitled to an award of its attorney fees tied to the legal dispute.
The county did not respond to requests for information about the cost of the cleanup or an updated total of the legal fees involved in five years’ worth of legal battles.
The attorney fees were estimated to be about $337,000 in August 2020.
Colorado Counties Inc., which represents 62 of the state’s 64 counties, told the Supreme Court that it would cost counties billions of dollars to address CDPHE’s compliance orders, which have tripled between 2012 and 2020, according to reporting by Colorado Politics.
smullane@durangoherald.com
