Meyers landfill ... again

4/09 unedited tahoe mt. news

By Kathryn Reed

Resolution to the prolonged lawsuit over the old Meyers Landfill is finally making substantive progress, though neither side believes a cap will be in place this summer.
However, the U.S. Forest Service does have a plan for the 26-plus acre site. The final project design for the cap is at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/ltbmu/projects/, then under the heading Meyers.
“It’s looking unlikely we’ll be doing work this summer,” USFS spokeswoman Cheva Heck said early this month, even though that was the agency’s intent earlier this year. Now 2010 is the target construction year.
Mediation resumed in March with a two-day session led by a new mediator who seems to be building consensus about how to settle the case. A sticking point all along has been who is going to pay what – that issue is still a stumbling block.
Lake Tahoe Unified School District has settled its portion of the suit. In 2001, the district became a defendant because waste from schools was put in the former garbage dump off Pioneer Trail.
El Dorado County is the main defendant in the suit because it ran the dump until it closed 38 years ago. Douglas County and South Lake Tahoe are also part of the litigation.
The city is closest it’s been to resolving its portion of the case, according City Attorney Cathy DiCamillo. She would not predict if a deal is weeks, months or a year off.
The school district spent about $130,000 on attorney fees, which comes from the budgeted legal fees account. The settlement mandates the district pay the Forest Service $100,000. Half of that come from the district’s insurance company, half from the general fund. The district allocated $50,000 in the 2007-08 budget for this purpose.
“It’s much like the state budget – there are no winners for us or the community; however, we are very relieved to have this issue behind us,” said Deb Yates, the district’s chief financial officer.
The Meyers Landfill was used from 1947-71. Twenty years later the feds sued a slew of entities for cleanup costs. Vinyl chloride, a carcinogen produced when household waste breaks down, is the main contaminant under the sealed plot, although methane and other gases pose problems. The Environmental Protection Agency has deemed it a SuperFund site.