The Missouri Attorney General’s Office on Friday announced a multimillion-dollar settlement of a lawsuit with the operators of the Bridgeton Landfill, where a fire is smoldering underground near radioactive material disposed of at the adjacent West Lake Landfill.
The state in 2013 sued Bridgeton Landfill LLC, Allied Services LLC, and Republic Services Inc., asserting breach of Missouri’s environmental rules and “common-law claims” in connection to the fire. As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs must conduct a program of comprehensive maintenance, monitoring, and mitigation, and make several financial commitments, according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office.
Over the past five years Bridgeton parent firm Republic Services has already done $200 million worth of work to offset the impact of the landfill fire, including building a technologically sophisticated wastewater treatment site, conducting monitoring, and establishing a cover for odor containment. It will sustain those mitigation operations, and make the following financial commitments: a $26 million bond and $61 million in further funding for mitigation efforts in the event of corporate default. Meanwhile, Bridgeton will establish a $12.5 million community restitution fund and pay $3.5 million to the state.
The Bridgeton and West Lake landfills are both part of the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Bridgeton, not far from St. Louis. The Bridgeton Landfill contains no radioactive material. However, the West Lake in 1973 received roughly 8,700 tons of leached barium sulfate from development of the atomic bomb in World War II, which was combined with contaminated soil to cover refuse at the landfill. In February, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency selected partial excavation as its preferred means of cleanup of the contaminated material.
