DEQ, EWEB, EPA cleans up Holiday Farm Fire aftermath

Now that the holiday farm fire has stopped burning -- there's a lot of cleanup to do.

Today in blue river... crews from the environmental protection agency were at work -- making sure that the environment... and neighbors... are safe.

Kezi 9 news reporter emma jerome tagged along and tells us what could happen if we don't let them do their jobs.

Emma jerome: "the epa has arrived in lane county scouring through properties which were completely destroyed by the holiday farm fire like this auto shop off the side of highway 126.

They're taking hazardous waste and materials and theyre disposing it to prevent any harm from happening to the environment of people" "right now these materials are exposed to the environment and public's health and epa's mission is to remove these materials safely... bulk them... transfer them to salem and then dispose" they've cleared over 50 properties in the mckenzie river area... and have permission to clean up over 400 more.

Randy nattis: "we have teams that are picking up household hazardous waste... any sort of petroileum product, acids, bases, any sory of ammunition that we might find that's still active... compressed cylinders like propane or acetylyne" in order for the crews to rid property of this sort of waste they need permission from the landowner to enter the property -- without that... the waste stays.

"it's going to cost mponey it's going to take time and there's a potential that their neighbors who would have gotten that work done could be at risk that there are still adjacent properties that have this material on site and still would present a public health problkem" nattis says he anticipates they'll be up there another 3 to 4 weeks until the work is complete "in the next hour you'll hear from eweb about the efforts they're putting forth to protect the mckenize watershed which is a key source of water for people living out here.

Reporting