Colfax open-burn request withdrawn; hearing canceled

Faced with mounting public opposition, Clean Harbors Colfax has withdrawn its request to be allowed to quadruple its open burning of toxic waste in Grant Parish.

“Wow! I am overjoyed,” Colfax Mayor Ossie Clark said Monday when he heard the permit request had been withdrawn.

“It takes me by surprise because we were thinking that we were going to be in for a very long battle with Clean Harbors concerning this permit, and for them to decide that it’s in their best interest and the best interest of the town of Colfax to pull it at this particular point, I’m just elated.”

The company had requested a permit modification from the state Department of Environmental Quality to allow it to increase the annual amount of net explosive weight that it openly burns at its facility 5 miles northwest of Colfax from about 500,000 pounds to more than 2 million pounds.

A public hearing that had been set for Feb. 23 in Colfax has been canceled now that the company’s application has been withdrawn, according to a DEQ spokesperson.

News of the company’s decision was enough to make Dolores Blalock forget the pain of having a tooth pulled.

“I had a tooth pulled, and I was feeling horrible, but now nothing can make me feel bad. This is the greatest possible news for me,” said Blalock, who actively opposed the permit request.

“I feel no pain right now. I am thrilled. … It’s like literally tons have been lifted off our shoulders and out of our air, and I am so grateful,” she said.

Phillip Retallick, senior vice president, compliance and regulatory affairs, for Clean Harbors, said the company had sought the permit modification as “a contingency plan” in case it needed to increase burning related to Camp Minden waste, as it had done under a previously issued temporary permit.

With the decision for the explosive M6 and other materials to be burned on site at Camp Minden, he said, “there became no need for the permit mod to continue.”

“Of course, we heard the community’s concerns,” Retallick said, and the company will be watching how the contained burn chamber at Camp Minden performs in destroying M6 as it considers possible alternatives to open burning at Clean Harbors Colfax.

“We want to work with the Legislature and with the Louisiana DEQ to explore alternative technologies if they’re commercially demonstratable and are safe,” he said.

Environmentalists and citizens had rallied to fight the company’s permit request, saying it would mean four times the amount of toxic fumes that endanger public health.

“I feel happy for the community,” said Brenda Vallee, who co-chairs Central Louisiana Coalition for A Safe and Healthy Environment.

The citizens group, whose other co-chair is John Martel, was formed to fight the Clean Harbors Colfax permit request.

“I think that the community was trying to give a message that they were concerned for the health and safety, and I think God listened to our prayers,” Vallee said.

Pineville council joins opposition to open-burn permit

The citizens group will remain active, she said, and it will support House Bill 11, co-authored by Rep. Terry Brown, I-Colfax, to ban open burning as a method to dispose of explosive materials, such as those burned at Clean Harbors Colfax.

Brown is "thrilled to death" that the company has withdrawn its permit request, but he is not backing off his House Bill 11.

He credited the citizens coalition for helping to change Clean Harbors officials' minds.

"This has been the best organized effort to save a community that we've had in years," Brown said.

"Our goal was never to put them out of business,” he said. “Our goal was for them to be better neighbors and to protect the community from the toxic fumes. ... Now we're hoping to make good neighbors out of them."

In addition to grass-roots opposition to Clean Harbors Colfax’s request, various public agencies took a stand against it as well. The Rapides and Grant police juries, the Colfax Town Council and the Pineville City Council all voted to officially oppose the permit request, and others were expected to follow, including the Alexandria City Council.

Hundreds of letters of opposition to the permit request were sent to DEQ. The deadline for comments had been Feb. 29, but the comments are no longer needed now that the permit request has been withdrawn.