EPA orders extensive cleanup of landfill near St. Louis
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday ordered an aggressive cleanup of a long-controversial landfill contaminated with radioactive waste near St. Louis, Mo., delighting community activists who have fought for such an outcome but angering companies who argue that the agency’s own science called for a more modest cleanup.
“This action reflects President Trump’s commitment to return EPA to its core responsibility — clean air, clean water and clean land,” EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler said at a news conference about the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Mo., which has lingered on the agency’s Superfund list since 1990. “We believe this decision strikes the right balance, while emphasizing the health and safety of the community.”
Wheeler’s decision is the latest signal that he intends to largely follow the policy course set out by his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, who resigned from EPA in July amid federal ethics investigations.
Pruitt was eager during his tenure to balance his industry-friendly regulatory rollbacks with a commitment to accelerating cleanups at the nation’s Superfund sites, saying such work was more central to the agency’s mission than combating climate change and helping shift the nation to cleaner sources of energy.
Wheeler, who has continued to dismantle Obama-era policies, said his decision on West Lake “reflects our larger commitment to the nation to expedite the remediation of Superfund sites across the country.” The EPA’s order, which caps decades of bureaucratic delay, intense debates and public protests, is expected to take fewer than five years Dawn Chapman, left, and Karen Nickel wear protective masks at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Mo. and cost those responsible for the site an estimated $205 million.
The West Lake Landfill contains thousands of tons of radioactive material from the World War II-era Manhattan Project that was dumped at the site in the 1970s, where it has languished ever since amid other waste.
The latest plan calls for excavating 70 percent of the radioactive waste from the site — a far cry from a 2008 solution proposed by the George W. Bush administration to cover and monitor the waste at West Lake.
Thursday’s final decision triggered a wave of texts and tearful phone calls among a collection of community members who had been fretting about the radioactive material near their neighborhoods and lobbied for the government to finally remove it.
“This administration listened to us. I don’t know how else to put it,” said Dawn Chapman, a founder of Just Moms STL, an activist group that has pushed for excavation of the site and possible relocation of families near the landfill. “For the first time, we’re going to have our community put back together ... I’m angry it took so long, but I’m relieved.
Thursday’s decision did not bring relief to Republic Services and Exelon, whose subsidiaries are responsible for the cleanup at West Lake, along with the Energy Department. In a statement, the subsidiary of Republic that oversees the site called the order “arbitrary and capricious.”
“(We are) opposed to the selected excavation because it creates unacceptable risk with no proportional benefit, will greatly increase the time needed to remediate the site, and is contrary to EPA’s own findings regarding the risks posed by the site,” the firm said in a statement. It added that the 2008 recommendation to “cap and monitor” the waste wouldn’t have risked exposing workers and community members to waste as it is excavated and moved elsewhere.
The Trump administration rejected those arguments. Pruitt’s order from February would have forced the companies to undertake a $236 million cleanup that would dig down roughly 16 feet into the landfill to remove as much radioactive material as possible.
By contrast, Wheeler’s final plan will allow workers to dig 8 to 20 feet below the surface of the landfill, in an effort to focus on areas where radioactive waste is most concentrated.