EPA: tires dumped into Continental Divide reclamation site

A Jefferson County contractor is being investigated after a Basin resident became suspicious of unscheduled dumping at the Luttrell Repository hazardous waste pit in the former Basin Creek Mine on the Continental Divide.

From the Helena Independent Record:

Buster Bullock, who operates Bullock Contracting Inc., said he wasn’t initially aware that it was inappropriate for his employees to throw the large, used tires into the pit at the top of the Continental Divide above the small towns of Basin and Rimini, and he doesn’t know how many were disposed of in that manner. The tire dumping is being investigated by both the state Department of Environmental Quality and the federal EPA. Ed Betka, who lives in Basin, said he believes the pit holds hundreds of tires that were trucked to the site in at least two side-dump rigs. “Saying there’s only 60 tires in there is a sham,” Betka said. “And what else is buried up there? They’ve violated the public trust and are doing things under the dark of night."

It should be noted that Mr. Betka is the business partner of a rival contractor.