Worker claims company dumped debris in forest

FORT COLLINS (AP) – The U.S. Forest Service is investigating claims that a contractor illegally buried the contents of campground toilets on forest land in northern Colorado instead of hauling it to a landfill.

A former employee for Idaho-based Eagle Feather Construction said Monday that he was told to bury the debris and human waste near the campground in the Roosevelt National Forest. Doug Harding, a homeless man from Grand Junction, says he was the backhoe operator on the job and he buried the waste next to the Laramie River.

Forest Service officials tell The Coloradoan in Fort Collins that the contract for removing and replacing the campground’s toilets required the waste to be hauled away.

The company says the waste was hauled away and Harding is lashing out because he wasn’t rehired.