Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/31/2014
State legislators from Missouri are considering a resolution that would call on the Army Corps of Engineer’s Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) to take over control of the West Lake Landfill site remediation project, located in Bridgeton, Mo., just outside of St. Louis. The resolution stems from public outcry after a smoldering fire in a nearby landfill threatened to spread to the West Lake Landfill, releasing radioactive contaminants from the site into the surrounding area. The proposed resolution states, “The members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-seventh General Assembly, the Senate concurring therein, hereby request the United States Congress to transfer the responsibility for the radioactive waste cleanup at West Lake Landfill from the EPA Superfund Program to the Corps of Engineers Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program in order to assure and expedite the removal of the radioactive wastes from the landfill to a federally licensed or state permitted radioactive waste disposal facility away from water and away from people.”
The resolution, proposed by Rep. Keith English (D), reasons that the radioactive contaminated materials in the site stem from the cleanup of the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works near downtown St. Louis after contractors in the 1970’s illegally dumped contaminated materials in the West Lake landfill that were originally disposed of in another landfill near Latty Avenue. The MCW sites, which processed uranium for U.S. nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1957, are currently under the supervision of FUSRAP. Since FUSRAP operates the other sites dealing with MCW, the resolution states that it should also take over control of the West Lake landfill cleanup as well.
Currently, the West Lake Landfill is under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency’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 smoldering fire. “The purpose of this survey is to determine the best placement and construction method for an isolation barrier,” EPA spokesman Chris Whitley. “This would be an isolation barrier of some type that would be designed to keep an underground smoldering event that is going on over in the Bridgeton Sanitary Landfill from reaching any radiation or radioactively contaminated material that might be in the West Lake portion of the site.” The engineering survey is expected to be completed by March while the groundwater analysis will continue for most of 2014, Whitley said.
Part of the motivation behind this potential resolution, according to the language of the resolution, revolves around the timeliness of the remediation of the site. It is their belief that the FUSRAP program would conduct and finish the remediation more quickly than the EPA. Whitley said that the EPA “doesn’t comment on non-binding resolutions passed by state legislators.” Ultimately, the potential resolution would only be a formal declaration of preference since the decision for FUSRAP inclusion can only come from an act of Congress or from a recommendation by the Department of Energy. DOE did not return calls for comment this week concerning the site’s suitability for inclusion in the program.
