Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
10/17/2014
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Solid Waste Management Program is requiring the Bridgeton Landfill to develop corrective action plans to prevent the spread of a smoldering fire toward the ‘neck’ area separating it from the radioactively-contaminated West Lake Landfill, according to a letter sent to the landfill, released this week. Last month, Todd Thalhamer, a consultant for the state of Missouri, suggested that temperature spikes in monitoring probes and gas interceptor wells spread throughout the South Quarry, the location of the smoldering fire, indicated it may be spreading north to the ‘neck’ area that connects to the West Lake portion of the site. In an effort to better understand the fire’s movements, the state called for Republic Services, the operator of the site, to install at least 12 new Temperature Monitoring Probes in the North Quarry within the next 30 days, as well as a corrective action assessment/plan to prevent the spread of the fire. In his letter, Solid Waste Management Program Director Chris Nagel wrote, “The corrective action plan must provide a method or methods for stabilizing and maintaining temperatures within the corrective action zone at less than 185 degrees Fahrenheit for gas extraction wells and less than 200 degrees Fahrenheit for temperature monitoring probes.”
Republic Services, however, has maintained that according to its data, the fire is not spreading in that direction. In response to Thalhamer’s initial report, the site operator brought in a consultant service, Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. (CEC), to provide analysis on the spreading fire. CEC concluded that the fire is spreading away from the ‘neck’ area, not toward it. “We are currently implementing a heat extraction pilot study, which is dynamic and could be expanded,” said Russ Knocke, Republic’s director of field communications and public affairs. “We do not believe DNR’s proposal is necessary. We read their letter as an expression of impatience about delays on construction of an isolation barrier, which we offered to build more than a year ago. It is unlikely that the reaction will come into contact with impacted material. If EPA decides to proceed with a barrier, it should be an effective solution that can be quickly installed."
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 the fire located near the radioactive part of the landfill. The EPA has also brought in the Army Corps of Engineers to assist on the project by providing technical review and oversight of the site owner’s cleanup plans and activities at the site, after public outcry called for a more experienced approach to the cleanup. In a recent analysis of the project, the Corps estimated that the construction of an isolation barrier to separate the fire from the contamination would not start for at least 18 months.
