Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
5/9/2014
The Environmental Protection Agency will test the baseball fields adjacent to the West Lake Landfill near St. Louis for contamination, an EPA spokesman said this week. The EPA has faced mounting community pressure, highlighted by a recent letter from the Missouri Attorney General, to test the site after a private citizen’s test showed a spike near a drainage ditch by the field. “We will be conducting some sampling at the Bridgeton Athletic Complex,” EPA spokesman Ben Washburn said. “Some of the recent reports in the media have generated a lot of fear and uncertainty in the community, and we wanted to conduct the screening based on valid science and engineering, using the proper quality assurance and quality control protocols to allay any fears that may be out there in the community about the suitability of the ball fields for use.” The EPA will begin the testing the week of May 19th.
The public concern of the spread of radiological contamination from the West Lake Landfill has grown in recent weeks, especially in light of the news that a baseball field located near the landfill may potentially have some radiological hot spots. A group of concerned private citizens have been testing properties adjacent to the landfill, and one of their tests indicated a spike of an unknown isotope near a drainage ditch by the baseball field. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster called on the EPA last week to expand its efforts in testing for radiological contamination outside the fence-line of the landfill, and the EPA indicated that it had no plans at this time to expand the testing area because it said “no contamination has spread beyond the landfill and that the site remains protective of human health.”
The West Lake Landfill cleanup project has taken on an added sense of urgency after recent reports revealed that the site contains more radioactive waste closer to a nearby smoldering fire than previously thought. Currently, the West Lake Landfill is under the supervision of the EPA’s Superfund program, which took over responsibility for the site in 1990. 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 a smoldering fire located near the radioactive part of the landfill. The EPA has also brought in the Army Corps of Engineers to help in the construction of the barrier, as well as with the cleanup of the site, after public outcry called for a more experienced approach to the cleanup.
