By John Stang
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it has selected partial excavation as its first choice to remove a massive amount of radioactive soil from the West Lake Landfill in Missouri.
In a Thursday press release, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the proposed five-year project would cost $236 million. But a 2017 EPA draft feasibility study put the price tag on this option at $276 million
The feasibility study cited seven potential options, mostly some form of partial or full excavation, with costs ranging from $75 million for solely capping the two contaminated sites to $695 million for excavating and removing all “radiologically impacted materials.” Total excavation would take almost 15 years.
The proposed remedy would remove 70 percent of the radioactivity from the two contaminated sites within what is known as Operable Unit 1 of the EPA Superfund Site. Together, they hold 8,700 tons of low-level radioactive wastes mixed with l38,000 tons of soil to cover trash at those locations in 1973. It has not been decided yet if the removed waste will be buried elsewhere in a specially lined site at the landfill or at another location. The current two West Lake locations were filled prior to laws going into effect on lining landfill burial sites.
West Lake was added to the EPA National Priorities list in 1990. Last month, the agency named West Lake as one of its 21 top-priority Superfund cleanup sites
The EPA will hold at least one public hearing on its first choice before making a final decision on cleanup. The agency’s recommendation is to remove the soil to a depth of 16 feet and then put an engineered cap on top of the two burial sites.
“The proposed remedy – “Excavation Plus” – includes both the removal of the majority of the radioactive material and construction of an engineered cover system to best protect the community of Bridgeton over the long term,” Pruitt said in the release. “This remedy addresses all radioactive material posing unacceptable risks to the public at large.”
When asked how the agency selected this option, and how “unacceptable risks” were determined, an EPA spokeswoman referred back to Pruitt’s statement in the news release.
The 200-acre West Lake Superfund complex encompasses both the Bridgeton and West Lake landfills, with several burial sites within them. A smoldering underground fire at the Bridgeton section is threatening the buried radioactive materials at the West Lake section, which is 1 1/2 miles from the Missouri River.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources did not comment on the specific EPA recommendation.
“We will review EPA’s proposed plan and provide any comments that the department believes should be considered. The department also encourages citizens to submit their comments during the public comment period,” said Missouri DNR spokeswoman Connie Patterson in an email.
Ed Smith, policy director at the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, said full excavation and off-site removal would still be preferable. He said the West Lake Landfill is in a flood plain, with a 1993 flood coming close to inundating the site. He also questioned the idea of stopping the digging at the 16-foot mark: “If they find a hot spot (below that level), is the EPA going to stop digging and abandon that stuff?”
West Lake’s groundwater was found to have unsafe levels of radioactive uranium, radium, and thorium-230 during tests from 2012 to 2014. The majority of the radioactive material is thorium-230, which is a decay product of uranium, which was processed at St. Louis’ Mallinckrodt Chemical Works facility during World War II for the Manhattan Project.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Republic Services, which owns a subsidiary operating the landfill — did not support excavation and wanted to just cap the contaminated material. The U.S. Department of Energy and power company Exelon are also responsible for cleanup costs, according to the newspaper.
