Feds Suing Ex Cop Over 10-Acre 'Iron Mountain' Junkyard In Renton

RENTON, WA - The owner of a massive illegal junkyard known locally as "Iron Mountain" is being sued by the U.S. Attorney in Seattle. The lawsuit asks a judge to grant Environmental Protection Agency officials permanent access to the site for cleanup and monitoring.

Charles Pillon's 10-acre parcel along Renton-Issaquah Road Southeast is full of junked machines. But Pillon, a former Seattle police officer, considers his junkyard a work of art.

The federal suit against Pillon, 77, was filed last Friday and follows a site inspection by EPA officials in November. According to the lawsuit, Pillon's property is still littered with dangerous chemicals that might be leaking into Lake Washington and nearby May Creek.

"EPA detected flammable, corrosive, oxidizing, and toxic substances in diverse vessels such as liquid waste in drums and buckets, fluorescent light ballasts, volatile liquid products in tanker trucks, asbestos-containing materials, pesticides/herbicides, and compressed gas cylinders," the lawsuit reads.

One of Pillon's neighbors complained that hazardous material drums had recently rolled downhill off Iron Mountain onto the neighbor's property. On top of the chemical hazards, EPA officials found people living on the property in dangerous conditions.

"EPA also encountered drug paraphernalia in buses and RVs on site, and one of the property residents living in an inoperable RV turned over a jar of mercury that he reportedly accumulated by breaking and collecting mercury from thermometers," the suit reads.

In 2016, Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued Pillon under the state's Hazardous Waste Management Act. Pillon was sentenced in June to 30 days in jail. He served the time this month and was just released from jail on Dec. 18. Pillon was also ordered to pay $15,000 in fines and clean up Iron Mountain - a project that could cost over $3 million, according to federal officials.

Seattle Weekly profiled Pillon and his property over the summer, exploring the history of Iron Mountain and Pillon's ideas about it.

Read the full lawsuit here.

Charles Pillon Iron Mountai... by on Scribd

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly state Pillon was a former Renton police officer.

Image courtesy Google Maps