DURHAM – The final phase of the tire-pile removal project at the late John Emerson’s tire dump on Old Brunswick Road is expected to be completed within the next two months, according to a state official.

State Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Randy McMullin estimates about 500,000 tires will be removed from the site during the final phase. They will be chipped and used in a Norridgewock landfill, the low bidder for the tires, at a cost of $81.90 per ton for a total of $400,471.

Although the DEP cleanup will be considered complete when the last of the large tire piles are removed in this final phase, McMullin estimated there are probably between 60,000 and 100,000 tires still scattered over the large parcel that will be left on site, but no piles.

The DEP began overseeing the removal of huge piles of tires from the site in the late 1990s. About 1.2 million were chipped and used in the construction of the new turnpike jetport exit and another 1.2 million were used on exit 8, McMullin said.

Funds for the tire pile cleanup comes from a state-approved bond issue for that purpose, he said.

Emerson’s tire dump was one of what McMullin described as “five mega piles” of old tires in the state, containing more a million tires each. When finished at the Emerson site, the DEP will move on to the last of the mega-tire dumps, located in Bowdoin.

The DEP is also preparing to oversee the clean-up of another 12 smaller tire piles throughout the state, said to contain between 10,000 and 100,000 tires each.

Among those sites is property owned by Laurence Emerson, which is located adjacent to the late John Emerson, his father’s, property. It has been estimated that there are about 65,000 old tires on the younger Emerson’s property. Work on that project is expected to begin during the summer, McMullin said.

John Emerson once estimated he had accumulated as many as 12 million old tires on his property.