BRIDGETON — Residents here are frustrated after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in recent days failed to provide a timeline for the cleanup of West Lake Landfill, one of the most prominent Superfund sites in the country.
The EPA issued an update last week on preparatory work for the eventual cleanup of the radioactive site. But years after charting a cleanup strategy, it did not offer clear details or goals about how much longer that work might last.
“They’re literally not giving a time frame,†said Dawn Chapman, co-founder of the local volunteer group, Just Moms STL, which closely tracks West Lake. “And that’s not happened before.â€
The agency’s targeted time to begin the cleanup has been steadily delayed throughout the past few years, and has become murkier over time. The agency estimated in 2018 that removing the bulk of the site’s radioactivity would take four and a half years to complete: about 18 months for a “design phase†to plan the work, and then approximately three years for excavating the site and building a cover for the landfill.
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But continued shifts in timing and clarity have stoked frustration among some local residents, like Chapman, who say the EPA is “moving the goalposts.â€
A regional EPA representative said the agency shares the same goal as the community.
“We share the same interests, and that’s seeing the site cleaned up as fast as we can get it done,†said Ben Washburn, an agency spokesman, adding that the EPA is also committed to doing the work effectively and correctly.
The contamination issues at West Lake have festered for decades, ever since World War II-era radioactive waste stemming from local uranium processing for the Manhattan Project was illegally dumped at the site in the 1970s.
But the debate and inaction surrounding how to clean up the site has also dragged out over decades and various presidential administrations. The landfill was first designated as a part of the EPA Superfund program’s National Priorities List in 1990. It wasn’t until 2008, though, that a decision about how to handle the site was first reached. That decision called for putting a cap on the site and leaving its contaminants in place — a course of action that was eventually rescinded amid public backlash, sending the EPA back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, public interest — and concern — about the site billowed in 2010, following the detection of an underground fire in the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill. That fire, called a “subsurface smoldering event†by officials, has come within hundreds of yards of known radioactive contamination but has been slowed by an intricate cooling system of pipes that run into the landfill.
Although the EPA finally reached an eagerly anticipated decision in 2018 about how to clean up the site, the three and a half years since that moment have been characterized by delays and, more recently, a decline in clarity.
In 2019, for example, the site’s estimated design phase was extended by a year, after the EPA announced that additional testing would be done to gain a more precise understanding of where the site’s radioactive contamination is found. At the time, EPA officials expressed hope that more careful testing could accelerate the ensuing cleanup itself, and local residents shared some optimism about the prudence of a “measure twice, cut once†approach, particularly if it could speed up other aspects of the work.
“We thought, ‘OK, that makes sense,’†said Chapman. “We were OK with a little bit of a delay.â€
And by 2021, EPA leaders signaled that planning the cleanup was expected to take longer, still — stretching to a target in 2023.
Now, however, the EPA has no identified estimate of when the planning will end, and when the actual cleanup will begin, according to the recent update from regional officials.
It is essentially in the midst of a three-dimensional game of Battleship, making boreholes into the landfill to better determine where and how to dig out radioactive material. Once that process is complete, the EPA said it “will provide updates to the community†about the projected completion date for the cleanup design.
The statement also said that the agency continues to negotiate an “enforceable agreement†with the public and private entities that are ultimately responsible for paying for the estimated $205 million cleanup. Those agreements are typically settled by the time a Superfund cleanup strategy is announced, but EPA officials said that a rare exception was made for West Lake, so that the cleanup design could begin while negotiations continued — a tactic intended to speed up the site’s remediation.
Next week, a small contingent of local residents, including Chapman, is set to travel to the EPA’s regional headquarters near Kansas City, to meet with top officials about the site.
One of her overarching questions is when the agency will consider that sufficient on-site testing has been done and cleanup can start.
“What’s your line in the sand?†Chapman said. “When are you going to feel like you’ve tested enough?â€
Chapman said she understands that the site’s cleanup is complicated, but she just wants to ensure that the public is kept as informed as possible.
“It’s accountability time for this agency,†she said. “If there’s something going on at this site, I get it. ... But be honest.â€
Post-Dispatch coverage of the West Lake and Bridgeton landfills
A landfill is on fire in Bridgeton, and while such "smoldering events" do happen in landfills, this one is close to World War II-era radioactive waste. The Bridgeton Landfill abuts the West Lake Landfill. West Lake is where nuclear waste, the remnants of the Manhattan Project, was dumped decades ago.Â
Here is a highlight of some of the Post-Dispatch coverage of the landfill, the radiation and community concerns.
April 2022:Â Maps show contamination extending up to and, in at least a few places, slightly beyond the fence line of the Superfund site.
March 2022: Residents and officials emerged frustrated and concerned after hearing details about newly discovered areas of contamination.
On Sept. 30, a two-year-old lawsuit aimed at getting Mallinckrodt to help shoulder the looming $205 million cleanup at West Lake was dismissed…
The public and private entities responsible for covering the $205 million cost of the landfill’s cleanup are submitting design-phase work plan…
The report does not adequately address residents’ concerns that the site is contributing to family members’ cancers, birth defects and other c…
Now the owner of the Superfund trying to rope a company it contends is owned by the New York-based financial services giant Citigroup into the…
Republic Services — the waste hauler whose subsidiary, Bridgeton Landfill, owns the radioactive West Lake Landfill Superfund site — may have s…
Some of the debate and division that has long surrounded the high profile West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Bridgeton was not immediately d…
The agency said late Wednesday that it would slightly modify its earlier proposal to partly remove the site’s contamination, employing “more f…
Remedial work at the landfill has reduced emissions to levels that are unlikely to harm most people, according to state health officials.
The money could be used only as “compensation and restitution†to communities within a four-mile radius of the now-shuttered landfill and to p…
“It’s a small step for a big problem. There’s a lot more that needs to happen,†Chappelle-Nadal said. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us.â€
As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces a mounting list of ethics and spending complaints, many locally wonder how…
But at a packed and emotionally charged meeting in Bridgeton on Tuesday night, scores of speakers provided vocal, and largely critical, feedba…
The EPA said the proposed remedy, which it calls “Excavation Plus,†is expected to take five years to implement and will remove the “majority 
The long string of speakers shared personal experiences — often recounting health complications suffered by loved ones — and voiced strong opi…
The results stand in contrast to a lawsuit filed in November by an area couple, Michael and Robbin Dailey, alleging that elevated levels of co…
Based on sampling conducted at the site, the state found "statistically significant evidence of contamination" affecting groundwater at and ar…
Fear, fueled by the popular perception of radiation risks and the slow response to the fire by landfill operator Republic Services and the Env…
The new map puts some of the newly discovered material in the northern quarry of the Bridgeton Landfill. But DNR has not raised any concerns i…
Construction was still months away because the agency has yet to hammer out a legal agreement with the company that would lead the project.
The county’s emergency plan says if the fire reaches contaminated areas of West Lake, “there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be rele…
“I feel like my best course of action is to uproot my family and move as far away as I can.â€
“I really want to assure the communities and families in ºüÀêÊÓƵ that there is no imminent threat,†EPA spokesman Curtis Carey said.
Companies potentially liable for the waste - and the cost of cleanup disagree on approach to the work.
“There’s some evidence that there could be other waste streams there,†said Craig Nesbit, a spokesman for Exelon Generation.
The EPA had said the waste was contained within fenced areas of the adjacent West Lake Landfill.
Many want to see a full-scale risk assessment from the EPA that takes into account a landfill fire. The lack of a fire risk assessment has bee…
That frustration boiled over at an October meeting between residents and officials from the EPA. Some attendees shoved chairs and stormed out …
Officials said they would bring Pattonville parents’ concerns to the attention of the CDC for a possible evaluation of health risks at the two…
If the city’s concerns about bird strikes aren’t addressed, plans to build a barrier between the burning underground trash at Bridgeton Landfi…
Republic Services says dealing with the landfills has cost $125 million thus far, one of the most expensive environmental problems it faces. T…
Republic Services agreed to additional carbon monoxide testing to monitor movement of the fire in the Bridgeton Landfill that has been stoking…
The Army Corps of Engineers will help build an isolation barrier between an underground fire at the Bridgeton landfill and radioactive materia…
Anyone who accepts the settlement is prevented from filing any further nuisance claims for property damage due to the landfill’s odor.Â
He said a 2008 decision to leave radioactive wastes at West Lake in place ignored the fact that the site was in the Missouri River floodplain,…
“We’ve had odors a few times since then,†said Kathy Bell who lives in the Spanish Village neighborhood just southwest of the landfill. “But, …
The EPA had no answers to the questions and criticisms of those pushing to have the radioactive waste excavated and disposed of in a licensed …
Republic Services Inc. will place a plastic cap on its Bridgeton landfill by early September to control foul odors and extinguish an undergrou…
“The situation up there is distressing and terrible, and anybody who is living around that site has every right to complain,†he said.
The odor coming from the Bridgeton Landfill is foul-smelling, but it’s not a health threat, according to testing done by the state this month.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources first reported indications of a subsurface fire in January 2011.Â
February 2022: Years after charting a cleanup strategy, the EPA did not offer clear details or goals about how much longer that work might last.