State finds no violations in how Miller County used road material
TEXARKANA, Ark. — Miller County has been cleared of wrongdoing in how it disposed of oil-based road material removed in August from a county shop in Fouke, Arkansas.
Allegations the Road Department mismanaged the material, an asphalt emulsion mixture, were first made in August 2023. The complaint prompted a series of site visits and follow-up investigations by the Arkansas
Department of Energy and Environment’s Division of Environmental Quality.
The last visit was made in March. DEQ senior compliance manager Ryan Hayden visited the county to inspect County Road 22, which had been resurfaced with a mixture of the emulsion and sand.
“At the time of the investiga- tion, no allegations of noncompliance were observed,” Hayden said in a letter sent Monday to County Judge Cathy Harrison.
In August, the emulsion, which was being stored in an old tank, was drained into a sand pit at the Fouke shop. The mixture was later excavated and buried on private property near County Road 218, northwest of Fouke.
After its initial investigations, the DEQ concluded the material was not hazardous but that it was improperly handled. The county was not fined or penalized.
However, in a Jan. 4 letter to Harrison, the DEQ did order the material to be excavated.
“A written response of the corrective actions taken, or to be taken, must be submitted within 30 calendar days from the date on this letter,” the DEQ wrote.
Photos of the excavated site and a soil sample analysis were also to be submitted.
Miller County filed its response to the order on Feb. 14 in an email from Micky Nottingham, Road Department foreman.
“We have dug up the sand and emulsion mixture that was bur
ied … and took it and the mixture of same that was at the county yard pad and graded it in on existing county roads that needed repaired,” Nottingham wrote.
The mixture was used to repair Miller County Road 22, something Harrison had earlier said could happen.
The email contained the requested photos of the unearthed site. Nottingham wrote he had sent a copy of the soil analysis to the DEQ.
Still, the state had questions.
“Further investigation is necessary,” Carol Booth, chief of communications for the environmental agency, said in March.
One of the state’s concerns was how the material was handled after it was excavated. Booth referred to direction found in a report issued by the environmental agency’s Office of Land Resources after a site visit in August.
In the report, the Land Resources inspector wrote that solid waste, such as the mixture buried by the Road Department, had to be discarded at a site or facility permitted by the state to handle such waste. Hayden noted the same in his inspection report.
“During the initial investigation, it was determined that the asphalt emulsion was not hazardous waste, however, even material that can be used as a beneficial fill cannot be disposed of into the ground by a property owner or a municipality,” he wrote.
Still, Hayden concluded repurposing the mixture “was beneficial to repairing the county road.” He reported hazardous substances were not leaching from the mixture.
Harrison said she is happy the matter has been put to rest.
“We had seven or eight investigators down from Little Rock that went through everything at the county barn from top to bottom and found nothing. The only thing we had to do was write ‘Used Oil’ on one tank,” she said to the Gazette.
The oil stored in the tank is used for heating the shop.