EPA agreement provides for cleanup at Arizona disposal site

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached an agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) designed to properly clean up and close the Tuba City Dump site in northern Arizona.

The site is situated near the villages of Upper and Lower Moenkopi on the Hopi Reservation and Tuba City on Navajo Nation land. As part of the agreement, the BIA will arrange for the transfer of dumped materials off tribal lands, backfill the site with clean fill material and provide routine groundwater monitoring.

The Tuba City Dump as a solid waste disposal facility that BIA operated as an "unregulated open dump” for local tribal communities from the 1950s until 1997.

The site covers about 40 acres and holds an estimated 307,000 cubic yards of material in its disposal areas. When the BIA stopped receiving waste at the Tuba City Dump site in 1997, it regraded some of the area before placing a temporary soil cover and encircling the site with a fence.

Overall, the EPA has determined that the BIA has not fully complied with closure requirements, groundwater monitoring, recordkeeping and other aspects of federal law.

The agency says it already has provided tribal representatives with an opportunity to review and comment on the draft, but it also will accept public comments on the agreement through June 28.

The EPA could take the action against its fellow government agency under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to ensure that the BIA handles, stores, treats, transports, and disposes of any solid waste that may impact human health or the environment.

“Hopi and Navajo communities have borne the brunt of legacy pollution for too long,” EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman says. “EPA appreciates that, by signing this agreement, the BIA has strongly committed to expending the resources needed for moving the waste off-site and achieving clean closure.”

Information on the cleanup process as it unfolds, including open meeting dates, can be found here.