Landfill Increasing Fines for Radioactive Drop-offs | Video

Evan Kruegel | 11/15/2012

The fine for bringing radioactive material into the Williston landfill had been $1,000, but landfill manager Brad Septka says that amount simply wasn`t deterring companies from trying to sneak it in.

"It seems like every time I gave out a thousand dollar fee at the landfill, the answer I got back was that they don`t care, they can afford it. Well we have to get it so they do care, and I think at this point that`s where we`re at.”

So they`ve increased the fine to $10,000 for any loads dumped with radioactive material. This morning, they held a meeting with every oil company in the area, explaining the new fee and presenting safe options for the disposal oil field waste.

"That`s why I brought all of them in there today, so that they realize there`s a place for every piece of their trash, just handle in the right way and we`ll all get along."

There were presentations by companies that do take hazardous waste, like Colorado-based Next Generation Solutions.

"We`re so specialized as a company, we understand radioactive material. You can`t see it, you can`t touch it, you cant feel it, so how do you know if you have it and what do you do if I have something that`s been impacted, so that`s what we do,” said CEO Kurt Rhea.

The company can deal with filter socks, pipe scaling, tank bottoms, and salt water disposal. Any time oil, water, or natural gas is pulled from the ground, radium, uranium and thorium come along with it.

"When it gets filtered it accumulates, and now you`ve got some material that nobody wants. Nobody wants to throw it away some place where it might cause a potential hazard to the public or to the environment. So we take that material, and we actually transport it out of state to a permitted facility that`s licensed and approved by the government to take the material."

Landfill management hopes the presentations were helpful in presenting disposal solutions to companies with hazardous waste, but more importantly, they hope the $10,000 fine scares companies from trying to sneak that waste into their landfill.

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