A $1 million cleanup of what was left after an arson fire torched 100,000 tires and burned for three days in 1991 in Luzerne County is nearly complete.

DEP took over the cleanup of the site near the Coxton rail yards in Duryea that was once one of the largest tire piles in the state after the tire recycler went bankrupt following the fire. Hundreds of thousands of tires remained to be cleaned up after the fire.

Twenty-three years later, a bulldozer is picking up the final remaining tires and tossing them into a dumpster where they will be hauled away to a landfill or recycled.

Most of the funding for the cleanup came from fines and fees that tire haulers pay in Pennsylvania..

With the clean-up at Coxton Yards, considered one of the worst tire fires in the state, Pennsylvania is now at a clean-up rate of 95 percent and still progressing.

(Reprinted from DEP’s April 17 Newsletter. Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)

4/21/2014