By the end of the year, all complied. The effort launched a constructive dialogue between EPA, community residents, and regulated facilities. More such targeted efforts are planned for 2001. Heavy rains in September 1998 had washed trash from the illegal dump into Las Vegas Wash, a tributary to Lake Mead, source of most of the Las Vegas area's drinking water. In one of the biggest hazardous waste enforcement cases in history, EPA and the state of Arizona found that a TRW Vehicle Safety Systems Inc. airbag factory in Queen Creek, Arizona , illegally shipped 3.2 million gallons of wastewater contaminated with toxic sodium azide to the Butterfield Landfill in Mobile, Arizona, a second landfill in Clive, Utah, and a third near Kettleman City, California.
Sodium azide is the explosive ingredient that makes vehicle airbags inflate instantly on impact.