Nonmetallics Department

To help spur practical uses for scrap tires generated in the state, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) has announced investments of $208,440 in research to be conducted at three state universities.

Funding for the grants comes from the state’s Solid Waste Management Fund and matching funds from the recipients, which are:

• Purdue University, Civil Engineering School, Tippecanoe County—$100,000
to study tire-shred mixtures as backfill in highway projects, including overpass walls and road embankments, and $37,500 to assess material and mechanical properties of different tire shred/soil mixtures and to conduct field tests of geotechnical structures built with the mixtures;

• Indiana University and the U.S. Geological Survey, Monroe County, $50,000 to study the effectiveness of shredded tire chips used as aggregate in on-site sewage distribution fields;

• Valparaiso University, Porter County, $20,940 to build a parking lot and driveway with rubber-modified asphalt; and

• Indianapolis, Department of Parks & Recreation, Marion County, $24,850 to resurface two basketball courts and a parking lot with rubber-modified asphalt.

In the past five years IDEM has cleaned up 23 areas where tires were illegally dumped. On average, it costs the agency $1.42 per tire to clean up illegal piles.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has finalized terms of a legal agreement with Max and Martha Starr that will enable the cleanup of the largest scrap tire pile in Pennsylvania.

"This resolution took much longer than it should have, and the tires at this site have posed a serious threat to the environment and public health for far too long," Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty says.

The 14-acre tire pile is on property owned by the Starrs in Greenwood Township in Columbia County. It has been the subject of numerous DEP enforcement actions and litigation since the mid-1980s.

Under terms of the proposed court order, the Starrs must pay a $400,000 civil penalty to DEP for failing to remove stockpiled tires from their property as required by an administrative order the DEP issued Jan. 25, 2002. The Starrs also will be required to relinquish operational control of the tire pile to DEP. However, the Starrs will maintain liability insurance on the site.

In addition, DEP has contacted about 42 businesses that sent tires to the property in the 1980s, requesting that they remove the same number of tires that they disposed of on the Starr property.

Once the cleanup is complete, the property will be sold. All the proceeds from the sale will go to the state as reimbursement for the cost of the cleanup.

"With the expected cooperation of the generators, we hope to have about 300,000 tires removed from the property," McGinty says. "The remaining 5.5 million tires will be removed over a period of years, and we will use innovative technologies wherever possible to allow us to put the tires to beneficial use when possible."