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Leventis sounded early warning on landfill
Excerpted
from The State, 6/13/04
JUNE 13, 2004 -- Taxpayers are potentially liable
for $84 million in cleanup costs if a major leak springs from
a hazardous waste landfill near Lake Marion, the state's largest
reservoir.
The money shortage, revealed through a recent bankruptcy
settlement for Safety-Kleen Corp., has former environmental policy-makers
wishing they had demanded more cash before the company sought
bankruptcy protection in 2000….
But for Sumter County resident Janet Lynam, the
landfill's longtime nemesis, news of the money shortage is gut-wrenching.
She has worried for years about the landfill's potential impact
on Lake Marion, just four football fields from the dump.
…Lynam and others had urged the state to require
the $133 million cleanup fund - considered the minimum needed
- long before Safety-Kleen filed for bankruptcy in June 2000.
Among those sounding the alarm were the Department of Natural
Resources; environmental groups; state Sen. Phil Leventis,
D-Sumter; and the state-owned Santee Cooper power company, which
manages Lake Marion.
Because of their concerns, the DHEC board in 1994 ordered Safety-Kleen,
then Laidlaw, to establish the $133 million trust fund. Laidlaw,
under protest, made its first installment of $14.5 million.
But less than a year after taking the historic vote,
the DHEC board relented to pressure from Laidlaw and the business
community, and in 1995 it approved regulations dropping the cash
requirement….Lynam and her organization, Citizens Asking
for a Safe Environment, joined other environmental groups and
sued.
In early 2000, the S.C. Court of Appeals ruled in Lynam's favor,
saying DHEC illegally developed the hazardous waste rules.
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