LINDON — A Lindon company involved in a technology some say could help reform a gas-guzzling, oil-dependent nation has closed after being slapped with dumping violations.
Indian Oil, at 135 S. 1155 West in Lindon, whose business license and conditional use permit were revoked by the Lindon City Council this week, has yet to respond to city officials and didn't attend the related meetings.
Indian Oil was a producer of biodiesel, a cleaner-burning, biodegradable fuel made from corn, soybeans or cotton seeds. The company had only been operating since 2006.
"We'd bent over backwards to help the business," said Lindon City Administrator Ott Dameron. "We actually are concerned that we had to take this conditional use permit away. We wanted this business to succeed. But evidently their processes weren't refined enough to make the business successful. It appeared that they've just shut down operations and won't communicate with either city."
Nearly a year ago, Orem officials took water samples from two locations downstream from Indian Oil and found they were contaminated. Orem handles all of Lindon's wastewater.
City officials traced the contaminants back to the company, where they collected samples and sent them off for further analysis, according to a letter sent from Orem to the owners of Indian Oil.
In the samples, lab results showed eight metals, six volatile organic compounds and three conventional pollutants, Dameron said.
The metals and volatile organic compounds are never allowed to be dumped, and the city didn't have an Industrial Discharge Permit to dump the other contaminants.
"It seems like somebody, in helping someone else, took the material, and it appears that they disposed of it down a sewer instead of taking it to an appropriate site," said Richard Manning, assistant city manager for Orem. "It was probably expeditious; we don't think it was malicious."
But dumping is dumping. And it's illegal.
Orem sent the company a letter in January 2007 requesting that the company remedy the dumping and pay the fines, or respond within 10 days to appeal the decision.
Company officials attended one hearing with Orem but none subsequently, Manning said.
Calls to company officials were not returned and a number listed online for the company had been disconnected.
Orem put a plug in the company's sewer and assessed a series of fines and fees — more than $25,000 for the two cities.
The Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste got involved with the company's cleanup process, said Scott Anderson, manager of the Hazardous Waste branch.
"It appears to be ... an inability to turn it into a viable operation," Anderson said. "It's probably financial issues."
E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com