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PARTON 5
Sheriff’s Department was informed by Military personnel that a plane was overdue and that the smoke might be from a downed aircraft. Emergency vehicles from both the Pinal County Sheriff’s and Fire Departments were rolled to the site. When they arrived, they found UA employees and a burning pit. The UA employees were threatened with arrest. Only after convincing the emergency response personnel that the same procedure had been on going every month for over ten years and showing them the covered pits as proof were the UA personnel allowed to leave. At this point, Pinal County’s managing agency developed an interest in the activities ongoing at Page Ranch and there were a lot of singed and ruffled feathers as a result. The same UA memorandum from R.E.Dorsey to John B. Trimble dated April 24, 1978 goes on to state: “The next morning Mr. L.C. Copisch, the Director of the Air Quality Control district for Pinal and Gila counties, called and was extremely irate. He accused the University of sneaking into Pinal County all these years and polluting their air. He also stated that he was going to get an injunction to prevent the University from ever doing this again. I explained to him during a lengthy conversation that we would be completely willing to cease the operation until it could be thoroughly discussed by all the parties concerned.”(6)Later in the same memorandum R. E. Dorsey adds: “Whether or not Mr. Copisch will purse the matter is uncertain. In either case the University will probably no longer be able to operate as we have in the past.”(6)The remainder of the memorandum was directed towards the possibility of burning the waste in an incinerator. It closes with: “In the interim we will be accumulating two to three truckfuls of waste chemicals per month around the University.” (6)
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