Nonmetallics

WATERTOWN TIRE RECYCLING CLEANS UP AFTER FIRE

Watertown Tire Recycling (WTR), Watertown, Wis., has contracted with North Shore Environmental Construction, Germantown, Wis., to clean the site of a tire fire on WTR’s property.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had given WTR owner Tom Springer 30 days to remove the estimated 30,000 unburned tires because Springer no longer has equipment to process them. Springer had already contracted with Waste Management of Wisconsin Inc. to take chipped tires from the site to a sanitary landfill.

North Shore Environmental began removing fire debris, ash and contaminated soil from the tire fire site in mid-August for disposal in a sanitary landfill, according to Joe Brusca, regional air and waste leader for DNR’s South Central Region based in Fitchburg, Wis.

The contractor will be required to sample the soil to determine the quantity and types of contamination at the site and will be required to clean the site to acceptable standards for those pollutants. DNR’s environmental cleanup program will review the contractor’s work before the project is considered complete, Brusca says.

North Shore Environmental estimates that remediation at the burn site, which measures nearly four-acres, will cost more than $350,000