Frustrated by legislative defeats and legal challenges, an Orem-based company has decided not to locate a hazardous-waste recycling plant in Nephi.
EnviroChem Services is now negotiating a joint venture with a hazardous-waste company just outside of Houston, said EnviroChem CEO Craig Pope."What it boiled down to is, time is money," said Pope. "We felt that the ongoing delays were unreasonable. We had anticipated that the permit process would take just over a year."
That process, however, was delayed by Citizens for the Appropriate Placement of Hazardous Waste, a Nephi group that did not want a hazardous-waste facility in or near the fast-growing town in Juab County.
The $5 million facility would be capable of storing up to 434,000 gallons of hazardous waste - primarily solvents, paints and inks, - that would eventually be converted into a fuel for industrial kilns.
Pope said EnviroChem's proposal for the Nephi plant would ultimately have been successful, but Cullen Battle, the attorney for the citizens group, disagreed, noting the plan was under fire both politically and legally.
Battle said the citizens group had succeeded in convincing the past state Legislature that the plant may not be a good idea.
The issue may not have even gone to the Legislature, Battle said, had the citizens group not persuaded the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare the proposed plant a "treatment" rather than a "storage" facility.
Treatment facilities in Utah are subject to legislative approval, which a Utah legislative committee defeated in the last session.
Rather than wait for the next Legislature, Pope decided to pursue the Houston option.
The citizens group launched another attack on the plant in 4th District Court, challenging a Solid and Hazardous-Waste Board decision that granted exemptions to five siting criteria that the proposed plant did not meet.
"The board's position was indefensible," said Battle. "They didn't even attempt to do a risk assessment."
But Pope said the lawsuit was frivolous. "I believe we would have won. The citizens group didn't want to see EnviroChem in Nephi because `hazardous waste is bad.' I don't think that argument would have held up in court."
Despite the reasons for EnviroChem's pulling out of Nephi, Battle said the event is a victory for the citizenry.
"It shows you that a local group of concerned citizens - ranchers, schoolteachers, real-life people - can make a difference."