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Scioto Brush Creek Tire Dump Cleanup
Completed
By
Martin McAllister
January 2011
For decades, tires were illegally dumped
along the banks of Scioto Brush Creek on Simpson Road near
Rushtown. After more than two years, the 22,000 tires have
been removed.
The clean-up of the largest known illegal
tire dump on Scioto Brush Creek is now complete and the site
restored. Approximately 22,000 scrap tires were disposed of
illegally along the banks of Scioto Brush Creek near its
confluence with the Scioto River. The property, located at 379
Simpson Road near McDermott, is owned by David Delabar of
Lincolnton, Georgia. Mr. Delabar inherited the property from his
father – tires and all.
In 2008, the Ohio Environmental Protection
Agency ordered Mr. Delabar to remove the tires, which at that
time were estimated to number approximately 2,500. Delabar
appealed the order and The Ohio Attorney General’s Office
eventually negotiated a consent order allowing the state access
to Delabar’s property. The Ohio EPA hired tire recycling
contactor Liberty Tire Recycling of Grove City, Ohio to conduct
the clean-up, which proved to be a much larger number of tires
than originally estimated. Approximately 22,000 tires were found
to reach a depth of 15 feet below the surface. Many of these
were passenger tires but some were large off-road tires. The EPA
calculates clean-ups on “passenger tire equivalents” or PTE’s.
In the final count, the illegal dump contained nearly 45,000
PTE’s. It is unknown how many tires had washed away in the creek
over the years.
The problem of illegal tire dumps is an
issue the Ohio EPA takes seriously. In 1998 an illegal tire dump
in northwest Scioto County containing an estimated 300,000 tires
caught fire and burned for days on the very edge of the Scioto
Brush Creek watershed. The subsequent removal and disposal of
ash and contaminated soil was very expensive. Tires also hold
water and provide breeding pools for the northern house
mosquito, Culex pipiens that has been known to carry the dreaded
West Nile virus. As the technology for recycling tires has
improved, options for tire disposal have improved as well.
Liberty Tire Recycling is a nation-wide operation and is the
largest tire recycling company in the country. The tires removed
from the Simpson Road dump will be recycled and used for
products such as rubber mulch, adhesives, molded rubber goods,
and paving applications.
When purchasing new tires, dealers charge a
fee of $1.00 per new and 50% of this fee is transferred to the
Ohio EPA Scrap Tire Management Fund for the costs associated
with the clean-up and disposal of illegally dumped tires. In the
case of the Simpson Road clean-up, the EPA incurred more than
$80,000 in clean-up costs. The settlement requires Mr. Delabar
to reimburse the state for most of the clean-up expense.
The Friends of Scioto Brush Creek would
like to commend those agencies and individuals who worked
together to accomplish this very important task. Every year more
than 12 million scrap tires are generated in Ohio. Far too many
wind up in our waterways, where they are a hazard and an eyesore
for decades.
For more information on the issue of scrap
tires, visit the following links:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/wnv-fact/pdf/1004.pdf
http://www.libertytire.com/Home.aspx
http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dsiwm/pages/tirepro.aspx
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