The House Energy and Commerce Committee will not consider legislation that would transfer cleanup authority at the West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Missouri from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Army Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), a committee aide told RadWaste Monitor on Monday.
Residents near the Bridgeton, Mo., landfill have been calling for FUSRAP to take over, claiming the EPA does not have a firm handle on nuclear waste contamination at the site, which is adjacent to the Bridgeton Landfill, where an underground fire has been burning since 2010. West Lake contains World War II-era waste that a local contractor for uranium processing company, Cotter Corp., illegally dumped in 1973. The U.S. Senate in February passed companion legislation, but that appears as far as it’s going to go in this congressional cycle.
The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not specify the reasoning. The House bill, introduced by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), garnered two co-sponsors: Rep. Ann Wagner and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, both Republicans from Missouri.
The Corps sent a letter earlier this month to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) stating that cleanup might not be any different under Corps management, and more than likely it would be more time-consuming and involve financial uncertainty.
Dawn Chapman, who has led community efforts to get EPA off the job, said Monday she and others still want to see the Corps take over at West Lake. She argued that EPA was never the right agency for the site, and even if it takes longer, the Corps would provide a more meticulous approach to monitoring of radioactive material and a better solution than EPA.
“We don’t care that it takes longer. We want it done right. … If the legislation doesn’t pass, then we’re still going to push for it,” Chapman said in a telephone interview. “It’s frustrating. It’s a battle, but it’s not a battle we ever thought was going to be over with the passage of legislation, unfortunately.”
The letter FUSRAP Director of Civil Works Steven Stockton sent to Upton, she said, is another indication that the Army Corps program is not properly funded. House and Senate energy and water appropriations bills for fiscal 2017 both propose to fund FUSRAP at $103 million, which is about $50 million less than the program’s annual funding levels from 1998 to 2008.
“To keep West Lake out of a program that it obviously belongs in, and should have always been in, but to keep a site out of a program because that program doesn’t have the funding, that doesn’t do the program much justice, either,” Chapman said. “There are always going to be sites added to this.”
Clay’s office, and that of Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who introduced companion legislation in the Senate, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on West Lake.
