More than a touch of glass at Bonney Lake illegal dump

Right on time at 7:30 on a cold, fall morning, two truck-trailers roared into an illegal dump near Bonney Lake.

As fog lingered, two workers took turns on a loader to fill their rigs with more than 30 tons of broken glass from cars and construction debris. It made a crashing sound as it landed in the trucks.

In an hour, the dump trucks and trailers were filled and left for a recycling company in Oregon, hauling away more remains from one of Pierce County’s most notorious illegal dumping sites.

The scene plays out five days a week in the latest stage of the county’s nearly decade-long effort to clean up the 51-acre property.

Since mid-August, two truckers have been hauling away about 65 tons of glass each weekday, putting a dent in one of the mounds of green-hued glass.

The cleanup amounts to turning mountains of debris into molehills. With more than 20,000 tons removed so far, the cleanup has cost the county more than $1.05 million.

The latest stage is actually recovering a little money for Pierce County: $19,000 for a six-month recycling contract.

The county put out a request for companies willing to pay for the glass that had been processed by the now-deceased landowner. Pacific Glass Media of Sumner was the only company to respond, agreeing to pay the county $3 per ton.

Pacific Glass subcontracts with Lloyd Enterprises Inc. of Federal Way, which loads and hauls the glass to Potters Industries Inc., the Oregon recycling company.

About 3,300 tons of glass have been taken to the Willamette Valley. Another 3,300 tons are expected to be gone by mid-February.

“Nobody wants that stuff,” said Craig Swanson, a project coordinator for Pierce County. “This is a unique opportunity.”

Mountains remain

The county estimates between 80,000 and 126,000 tons of unprocessed glass and solid waste will remain in sprawling piles a dozen feet high after this phase is completed.

Taking the waste to the landfill in Pierce County would be too costly: $59 a ton plus transportation.

To aid this cleanup and others, county staff plan to ask the Pierce County Council in February to allow processing dumped material on agriculturally zoned land, Swanson said. Then the debris could be separated into recyclable material on site, avoiding having to move the material for sorting.

If the remaining debris were mechanically processed, Swanson estimates 70 percent of it could be recycled as glass and sold. The remaining 30 percent could be hauled to the landfill.

Besides the cost, disposing of heavy glass at a landfill isn’t a sound environmental option since glass doesn’t decompose, Swanson said.

The property adjacent to 22027 Connells Prairie Road E. is the “poster child” for the county’s Dirty Dozen list of cleanup sites established in 2002, Swanson said.

All but this site and another off state Route 410 near Buckley have been completely cleaned up, he said. illegal dump.

The Connells Prairie property was owned by Michael W. Bachmann, who over five years amassed an estimated 150,000 tons of waste glass, gypsum, household garbage and construction-demolition debris.

Bachmann ran a self-proclaimed recycling business on eight of his 51 acres, according to the county.

The property got passed off to Pierce County in December 2002. The bank that owned the land had stopped paying taxes and deferred foreclosure on the mortgage Bachmann had on the land and its waste, Swanson said.

County prosecutors charged Bachmann. In September 2002, he pleaded guilty to two gross misdemeanors for illegal dumping and two misdemeanors for zoning violations and maintaining a public nuisance.

Bachmann was sentenced to 18 months in jail and fined $12,000. He was 50 when he died in December 2004.

Swanson said rogue contractors were paying Bachmann rates less than those charged by a legitimate landfill to get rid of their debris. While Bachmann claimed to run a recycling business, Swanson said, “the fact of the matter is not much (material) went out.”

Even though neighbors complained, Bachmann kept taking in debris.

“There were a lot of violations on the property that involved multiple (county) agencies,” Swanson said. “The county at the time was not doing a very good job of coordinating those efforts.”

Change adopted

The case helped lead to the creation of Pierce County Responds, a reporting system and coordinated response by county agencies to illegal dumping and public nuisances.

“It was really the poster child for the inception of Pierce County Responds,” Swanson said.

Other than construction materials containing asbestos, testing of the site found no contamination.

As for the future of the land, “The end use is yet to be determined,” said Rick Tackett, a real property specialist for the county.

Selling isn’t a viable option for the county at this point. The cost of the remaining work is greater than the value of the land, Swanson said.

For now, the sound of glass crashing into a truck-trailer is a step forward. “It’s good that they’re cleaning it up,” said Chuck Meadors, one of the drivers.

The county is removing hazards and making the area safer, Swanson said.

“Obviously, we’re not ever going to recoup our expenses,” he said. “In difficult times, under difficult budgets, we’ve been able to make progress.”

HOW THE COST BREAKS DOWN

Pierce County has spent more than $1.05 million cleaning up a 51-acre illegal dump near Bonney Lake.

The costs:

• $990,592. For the loading, transport and disposal in 2005 of nearly 17,000 tons of household garbage, demolition debris, and contaminated wood chips and soil.

• $30,891. For the removal in 2003 of household garbage and numerous derelict buildings from the site.

• $37,698. For an engineering firm in 2002 to determine whether soil, surface water or groundwater contamination had resulted from materials stockpiled on the site. No contamination was found.

Source: Pierce County Public Works and Utilities

Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647
steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
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