Anger builds at EPA over radioactive landfill, The HIll, By Timothy Cama – 08/29/15 Leaders in a St. Louis suburb are urgently calling on top Obama administration officials to quickly clean up a landfill with radioactive waste that they believe could catch fire.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working for 25 years on the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, Mo., which has housed barium sulfate waste from the Manhattan Project since the 1970s.
The EPA is still studying the site and considering a wide range of actions to contain the radioactive material under its Superfund program for cleaning severe environmental contamination.
“What we have is an emergency,” said Ed Smith, energy program director with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. “It’s a slow-moving emergency.”
Dawn Chapman, an organize of local activist group Just Moms STL, along with Byron DeLear of Energy Equity Funding, called directly on President Obama to act in a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch opinion piece.
Matt LaVanchy, a local fire department official, told radio station KTRS that he believes the fire could be less than 1,000 feet from the radioactive material, and is trying to train firefighters for possible outcomes.
“There’s a possibility, the potential, of radioactive material being carried away by the result of the smoldering or the combustion event,” he said.
Residents have been working closely with Sens. Claire McCaskill (D) and Roy Blunt (R) and Reps. Lacy Clay (D) and Ann Wagner (R), who have written multiple letters and taken other action to put pressure on the Obama administration to take care of the problem.
Beyond the fire risk, locals argue that the radioactive material could also be compromised by floods, tornadoes, earthquakes or other disasters.
Angered with what they see as EPA’s slow movement on the matter, local leaders want the Army Corps of Engineers to take over as the lead agency overseeing the radioactive waste……..
The Department of Energy and Exelon Corp., which used to own the company that processed the uranium thought to have produced the waste, are also potentially responsible for the cleanup. http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/252231-anger-builds-at-epa-over-radioactive-landfill
