Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/25/2015
The Department of Energy has rejected a request from members of Missouri’s congressional delegation that DOE authorize changes to the cleanup of a landfill that contains radioactive material. According to a Sept. 10 letter from Office of Legacy Management Director David Geiser, DOE has not obtained any new information from the cleanup that would qualify the West Lake Landfill for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. “At this time, neither the Department of Energy nor the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers is in possession of new information suggesting that non-Cotter affiliated material may be present at the West Lake site,” Geiser wrote to the lawmakers. “However, should new information be received, DOE, in consultation with USACE, would assess whether it merits a renewed inquiry into the site’s inclusion into FUSRAP.”
The lawmakers – Sens. Claire McCaskill (D) and Roy Blunt (R) and Reps. William Lacy Clay (D) and Ann Wagner (R) – sent their letter in July after a potential new waste stream emerged that could link the landfill in Bridgeton, Mo., to DOE legacy waste. The letter appears to be motivated by recent revelations from Cotter Corp., one of the site’s potential responsible parties, that helped identify the waste stream as possibly being connected to government activity. Cotter has been studying the public record and older documents to help alleviate public concern about what and where radiological material is located in the landfill.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program assumed responsibility for the landfill in 1990. Public outcry over the pace of the cleanup, though, has led to calls for a more experienced agency to take over remediation of the site from the EPA. The agency has brought in the Army Corps of Engineers to provide technical review and oversight of the responsible parties and site owner’s cleanup plans and activities at the location, but community leaders want the Corps to lead the project.
Recent reports revealed the West Lake Landfill contains more radioactive waste closer to a nearby smoldering fire than previously thought. The EPA is conducting an engineering survey and groundwater analysis of the site to determine the best location to construct an isolation barrier to prevent the spread of the fire located near the radioactive part of the landfill.
