Ballot issue seeks pressure for cleanup of Denver site Shattuck Superfund neglect spurs effort

By Susan Greene, Denver Post Staff Writer Copyright 1998 Denver Post August 7, 1998

A referendum on next week's ballot will ask Denver voters whether to press Colorado's congressional delegates to force a federal cleanup of the Shattuck Superfund site.

The ballot question - the only measure specific to Denver in the Tuesday's primary election - marks the latest strategy in the city's 19-year effort to remove low-level radioactive waste entombed at 1805 S. Bannock St.

State health officials and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have supported keeping the estimated 72,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of waste buried in a giant concrete monolith at the former S.W. Shattuck Chemical Co. plant. The dirt is laced with potentially cancer-causing contaminants, including radium, uranium and molybdenum.

EPA officials say the waste poses no health risk and that removing it would be prohibitively expensive at an estimated cost of $6 million to $8 million. Still, they refuse to take a position on the referendum.

"That's local government at work. Basically, it's the business of the city and county of Denver. We don't think it's appropriate to comment," said Max Dodson, U.S. assistant regional administrator.

State environmental officials also are taking no public stance on the ballot question. But Howard Roitman, director of the hazardous materials and waste management division of the state health department, said the buried waste poses "no public threats to health or the environment."

Jack Unruh begs to differ. He lives six blocks from the site and serves as president of CLEANIT - Citizens Loving Environment and Neighborhood Invincible Together.

"We just think this is a crummy way to run a government, shoving this down people's throats," he said of the state and federal handling of Shattuck.

Made up chiefly of Overland neighborhood residents, that group argues that their area has been neglected by the EPA and, like other mid- and low-income neighborhoods, unfairly forced to cope with hazardous-waste storage.

"This is about environmental justice," Unruh said. "We're pretty sure this wouldn't have happened at Cherry Creek."

Group members are pushing to clean up the waste by hauling it to a licensed dump in rural Utah. Mayor Wellington Webb's administration has supported their cause, but the city has lost legal battles on the issue in district court and in the circuit court of appeals.

This month's ballot question would not force any specific action or policy changes. Rather, it asks voters to say "yes" or "no" to a resolution calling on Colorado's congressional delegation to support laws forcing the removal and disposal of the Shattuck waste. It also presses for a congressional ban of radioactive waste storage in "any populated area."

"We don't think that kind of stuff should be sitting a metropolitan area, particularly when the neighbors have asked that it be removed," said Carmi McLean, Colorado director of Clean Water Action.

Despite her group's support of the measure, McLean questions whether "it has any teeth." Rather than a voter referendum, she said she would prefer that federal environmental officials "simply make the right decision to clean up the site."

"There's just nobody home at EPA," she said. "They need to listen to the mayor of Denver and the neighborhood groups that have to live next to this stuff. That seems like a no-brainer to me."

Mike Risler, director of legal enforcement for the EPA's Denver office, responded by insisting that his agency responsibly has buried the waste and protected the health of Shattuck's neighbors.

CLEANIT has raised about $ 7,000 to push its "yes" position on the ballot question. The group plans to step up its campaigning this week by distributing literature about hazardous waste, posting broadsides throughout the city and planning a vigil Sunday at the Shattuck site.

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