The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a revised emergency response plan for the radiologically contaminated area of the West Lake Landfill in Missouri.
The Oct. 15 approval came after the agency in August rejected both the emergency response plan and the site management plan prepared by contractor Parsons on behalf of the “potentially responsible parties” for cleanup of Operable Unit 1 at West Lake: the Department of Energy, Cotter Corp., and Bridgeton Landfill LLC.
In its initial rejection, the EPA listed changes needed for nine sections of the emergency response plan. Some were minimal wording changes to the document, while others demanded a better understanding of the approach for the actual response to an incident. For example: The EPA wanted the plan to address how the emergency response manager would be alerted to an event, and clarity on how workers would evacuate the contaminated area during an emergency.
The Environmental Protection Agency received the revised emergency response plan on Sept. 26.
“The revised document and response to comments have sufficiently addressed the comments and the EPA hereby approves this ERP document,” Christine Jump, remedial project manager in the EPA’s Superfund and Emergency Management Division, wrote in an Oct. 15 letter to Paul Rosasco, project coordinator for Emergency Management Support, of Golden, Colo.
Rosasco is coordinating communication between stakeholders involved in the West Lake remediation.
Among the fixes, the report now says responsibility for alerting the response manager to a potential emergency would be spread among personnel who work in OU-1, employees of landfill owner Bridgeton Landfill, contractors, visiting regulators, and others working in or near the contaminated area.
The EPA in September also rejected the initial versions of the site management plan and draft remedial design work plan and design criteria report for OU-1. The status of updates to those documents was not immediately available at deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor.
Operable Unit 1 covers two areas of radiological contamination, a buffer zone, and a single privately owned lot at the 200-acre Superfund site near St. Louis. The contamination is the result of 39,000 tons of surface soil that had been mixed with 8,700 tons of radioactive leached barium sulfite residues prior to use as trash covering. Erosion migration is believed to have spread radiological material to the buffer zone and lot.
The Energy Department and other potentially responsible parties must design and then carry out the remediation approach approved by the EPA in September 2018. That involves excavating most radiologically impacted material in OU-1 as deep as 20 feet below ground. Soil contaminated to levels above 52.9 picocuries would primarily be removed down to 12 feet. An engineered cover would be placed over the landfill after the contaminated material has been removed. The project is estimated to cost $205 million. The design process and actual cleanup could take up to six years.
