Juan Carlo / Star staff Adolfo Bailon, left, senior field representative for Sen. Barbara Boxer, and Supervisor Kathy Long look at balls of cement buried at the Halaco Engineering Co. site.

On a wet and muddy Friday, county Supervisor Kathy Long went out with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency to see how they planned to keep hazardous waste at the old Halaco Engineering facility from drifting into the neighboring wetlands of Ormond Beach for at least the next three years.

The work to temporarily stabilize the old magnesium and aluminum recycling plant's 28-acre mountain of waste and its crumbling 11-acre smelting plant has cost more than $5 million, said Rob Wise, the EPA's on-scene emergency response manager.

Although there is still work to be done on the rusty, aging metal and concrete buildings, Wise said, much of his job is done. Meanwhile, the EPA is considering whether to include the Halaco facility on a list of Superfund hazardous waste cleanup sites.

If it is included on the list, and several federal officials said the listing appears likely, the next question is what to do with the waste and the land it sits on. Several local officials want the waste hauled away. On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors will consider sending a letter to the EPA demanding "complete cleanup and removal of all hazardous materials on the Halaco site."

At least one EPA official has said the cost of hauling the estimated 750,000 cubic yards of waste might be prohibitive, but Long said she would lobby the federal government to do just that. Long said she also wants to ensure that trespassers are kept out of the site, which has become a popular spot for taggers and dirt bikers.

To prevent runoff, Wise and his crew regraded the 40-foot-high slag pile, which is laden with metals and low-level radiation left behind by the now bankrupt company. The crew also covered the waste with jute, a natural-fiber fabric made of coconut husks.

"We bought the entire U.S. supply of jute just to cover this thing," Wise said during Friday's tour.

The city of Oxnard recently condemned the company's old buildings that housed the smelting furnaces, air filters and tumblers used to melt and process the metal. A scrap company was to cut up and haul off much of the metal structures that remain, but the buildings are caked with a thick, hard coating of hazardous waste, Wise said.