(SARATOGA SPRINGS) – A former congressman is angry at being forced off his business site for a chemical cleanup operation. Ex-congressman, Merrill Cook, says the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration kicked him off his 480-acre explosive plant site in Saratoga Springs to clean up chemicals used to make explosives for the mining industry. The Environmental Protection Agency budgeted $2 million for the cleanup effort with most of the waste to be transported to a construction landfill in Tooele County. Cook insists that the cleanup was never necessary and said the EPA rejected two proposals he submitted that would have lowered the cleanup costs and allow his company to earn between $100,000 and $200,000 in profit. Cook also criticized SITLA because they hiked his rent last year from $4650 a year to more than $1.2 million annually that drove him off the property that could have used for development. Both Cook and SITLA are suing each other in court over the matter and will eventually resolved by a judge.