The Department of Energy and two companies have agreed to carry out “remedial design” for the cleanup approach selected by the Environmental Protection Agency for the radioactively contaminated area of the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Mo.
The Energy Department, Bridgeton Landfill LLC, and Cotter Corp. are the potentially responsible parties for the EPA Superfund site. They committed to the design project under an amendment to the standing remedial investigation/feasibility study administrative settlement agreement and order on consent for West Lake, the EPA said in a press release Wednesday.
“This Administrative Settlement and Order on Consent is an enforceable agreement with the PRPs who will perform the work under EPA oversight,” Jim Guilford, administrator for EPA Region 7, said in the release. “The design work includes additional site testing, modeling, and engineering design that are required to ensure the remedy can be implemented in the most expedient and safe manner.”
Two sections of the 200-acre Superfund site were contaminated in 1973 by 39,000 tons of surface soil that had been combined with 8,700 tons of radioactive leached barium sulfite residues before being used as trash coverage.
In an amended record of decision last September, the EPA set out a remediation approach on the so-called Operable Unit 1 that requires excavating material as far down as 20 feet in West Lake’s contaminated sections. At the time, the $205 million project was expected to encompass 18 months of design and three years of excavation. The impacted area would then be topped with an engineered cover.
The potentially responsible parties will be expected to conduct the remediation, the EPA has said.
Bridgeton Landfill, a subsidiary of waste disposal company Republic Services that owns the landfill, in September said it objected to the new remediation approach over the prior “cap and monitor” plan.
