Cleaning up landfill could cost up to $44 million, EPA says

DAYTON — Making the 100-acre Valleycrest Landfill safer and ready for redevelopment could cost anywhere from $25 million to $44 million, according to estimates and clean-up scenarios submitted to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

But it will likely be a year before any final plan is approved, Scott Glum of the OEPA said Thursday night, Nov. 19. A final plan will include many revisions from what is being proposed, he noted.

To date, about $55 million has been spent at Valleycrest, and 42,000 barrels of toxic waste have been hauled away in an emergency action.

About 30 neighbors of the landfill off Brandt Pike met Thursday night to discuss future redevelopment.

The landfill was used by General Motors, NCR Corp. — as many as 20 industrial companies, Glum said. Those parties are responsible for funding the clean-up. Benzene and vinyl chloride has been detected in groundwater adjacent to site, he said.

The Keystone Gravel Company of Dayton ran it as a sand and gravel quarry from some time before 1935 until the 1970s. It became a solid waste disposal site in 1966. Later, industrial waste including drums full of hazardous waste were dumped there until about 1975.

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