More than 40 tons of crushed stoves, water heaters, washers and dryers have been scooped out of the ground since Tuesday, with crews of city workers, hired contractors and environmental consultants working full days. That's in addition to 30 tons excavated before work was suspended because of concerns over possible hazardous materials in the soil.

Soil tests revealed only trace amounts of such materials, city officials said, and the extraction work is expected to be completed today.

"They'll keep digging until the end," said Steve Chang, chief of the state Health Department's Solid and Hazardous Waste branch, which is heading the investigation.

Crews have been taking an average of four truckloads of crushed appliances daily to Hawaii Metal Recycling, where they will be shredded.

So far, no buried refrigerators or air-conditioning units — either of which could contain hazardous Freon — have been found, Chang said.

By yesterday afternoon, workers had built an 8-foot pile of crushed appliances. A backhoe operator worked painstakingly to sift through the dirt and pull out only white goods. Sections of the dump site, about the size of a football field, had been dug about 5 feet deep. Workers wore dust masks and protective gear during the excavation.

A total of 6,400 empty propane tanks that had been stored at the site have been removed by Propane Man in Waipahu, which will prepare the tanks for recycling.

That effort alone cost the city $84,000, city officials said.

The city is awaiting a final report from EnviroServices, consultants hired to conduct soil tests, before determining the cost of the entire extraction project, said city spokeswoman Carol Costa.

"We haven't made a decision or had a discussion about the cost yet," Costa said. The report "will give us a lot of information."

City refuse disposal facility superintendent Peter M. Kealoha is among those who have been interviewed during investigations being conducted by the state and city.

Kealoha did not return phone calls seeking comment.

There are 29 city employees who use the former incinerator site at the end of Waipahu Depot Road as their base. On average, about five people are there during the day.

Carroll Cox, president of EnviroWatch, an environmental watchdog group that discovered the buried material, said he believes the city is rushing the cleanup without doing adequate testing for toxins in the soil and air.

"My concern is (the city) is on a fast pace to get this done to get public pressure off," said Cox, who has been to the site every day since the clean-up began. "They're just rushing to put a pretty face on a very ugly situation."