Landfill’s Future Grim, Jury Told Expert Predicts ‘Armageddon’ From Industrial Chemicals

“Armageddon” from industrial chemicals dumped at the Colbert Landfill is coming, perhaps within a decade, a geologist testified Tuesday.

When Colbert’s buried garbage pits begin to decompose, much more toxic waste will spread into the ground water, said engineering geologist George Maddox.

“It’s my personal opinion that we’re not done paying for Colbert yet. What we’ve seen so far is a minor skirmish compared to what will happen when the organic chemicals break loose,” Maddox said.

The water expert and former Washington Department of Ecology official is Spokane County’s chief witness in a high-stakes federal trial under way in Spokane.

Next week, jurors will decide whether the Twin City Fire Insurance Company must pay some of Colbert’s cleanup costs from a $25 million general liability policy the county purchased in 1982.

Maddox told jurors he didn’t know for sure the landfill was the source of contaminants detected in neighbors’ wells until he finished monitoring tests in spring 1982 - while the Twin City policy was in effect.

Colbert was proposed for the national Superfund list of toxic sites in May 1981, and listed officially in August 1983.

Maddox first predicted “Armageddon” from the landfill in late 1981, he said under cross-examination by Dean Lum, an attorney for Twin City.

“We knew we had a problem ” with chemicals dumped into the landfill from 1975 to 1980 by Key Tronic Corp., Maddox said.

“My ‘Armageddon’ statement was to emphasize the future problem of what we’d have if (the chemicals) broke loose,” he said.

State Ecology officials advised the county to dump the Key Tronic wastes into pits of household garbage to “lock up” the liquid chemicals in the garbage, Maddox said.

Twin City’s attorneys called several witnesses to show county officials knew much earlier than 1982 that the landfill was causing the problem.

They grilled Damon Taam, who supervised Colbert starting in May 1979, about why the county waited so long to test ground water at the landfill.

Taam, now a city solid waste official, described the county’s “confusion” in 1979 and 1980 as more stringent state and federal environmental laws took effect.

Thousands of gallons of liquid organic chemicals used to degrease keyboards at Key Tronic were dumped at Colbert from 1975 to 1980.

The county told Key Tronic to move the wastes to Colbert after a Mica Landfill operator complained one chemical ate the paint off his caterpillar when he tried to bury the day’s garbage, said Bruce Foreman, a former Key Tronic shop manager and director.

“That upset the operator. At Colbert, they just had an open, shallow pit, and no coverage with a cat was required,” Foreman said.

In May 1981, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called Colbert the No. 2 most hazardous site in the Pacific Northwest and proposed it for the new Superfund list of toxic cleanup sites.

Even after Maddox concluded in 1982 that the landfill was causing the pollution, Taam said he still didn’t believe it.

Taam said he thought contamination to the north of the landfill might be caused by some type of “midnight dumping” or by people cleaning out their septic tanks.

“You never confirmed any of these, did you?” Lum asked.

“No,” Taam said.

Gary Wilson, Colbert’s nearest neighbor to the north, testified for the insurance company.

Shortly after Colbert resident Donna Warner complained about industrial dumping at the landfill in October 1980, the county tested Wilson’s drinking-water well.

It showed extremely high levels of a de-greaser.

“A couple of days before Thanksgiving, they told us to quit drinking our water,” Wilson said.

Shortly afterwards, Wilson said, he went to a homeowners’ meeting with county Commissioner John McBride and asked for help getting another water supply.

McBride “said he’d like to help but was advised by his legal staff it would be admitting guilt. I got up and walked out,” Wilson said.

For nearly seven years, the family hauled drinking water from his mother’s house in Spokane, he said.

Wilson and several neighbors sued the county and were awarded more than $300,000 in damages for loss of their water and reduced property values.

Spokane County attorney Jerry Neal said he isn’t sure Maddox is right about a huge release of chemical pollution in Colbert’s future.

But if he is, Colbert’s neighbors won’t be as badly affected this time because the county has spent about $2 million to hook up Colbert residents to the Whitworth Water District, Neal said.

An air stripper to remove organic chemicals is operating at Colbert and “can run for 30 years if necessary” to clean up any additional pollution to meet federal drinking water standards, Neal said.

The Colbert trial will resume Monday in Judge William F. Nielsen’s courtroom.