Missouri officials are warning the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that there is a “high likelihood” radioactive contamination is in a smouldering landfill outside St Louis, the Missouri Independent has reported. In a letter, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) asked the EPA to assume oversight of the Bridgeton Landfill, arguing it may contain nuclear waste similar to the adjacent West Lake Landfill that is subject to EPA oversight and cleanup to remove thousands of tonnes of uranium dumped during World War II.
Both landfills, in the St Louis suburb of Bridgeton, have received extensive attention from regulators over the years. For more than 14 years, the Bridgeton Landfill has been experiencing a “subsurface smouldering event” – a chemical reaction that heats and consumes waste like a fire but lacks oxygen – emitting noxious odours and raising concerns among residents that the “fire” might reach the radioactive waste in the nearby West Lake Landfill.
St Louis was part of a geographically scattered national effort to build the nuclear bomb. Much of the work in the area involved uranium, where Mallinckrodt Chemical Co was a major processor of uranium concentrate near downtown St Louis. In 1946, the government bought land near the airport and began trucking nuclear waste there from the Mallinckrodt facility. Mallinckrodt stored barrels of K-65, a radioactive residue at the St Louis airport in deteriorating steel drums.
In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) demolished and buried buildings at the St Louis airport site. Continental Mining & Milling Co moved the waste to nearby Bridgeton. Storage was so haphazard that even the path to the site was contaminated by trucks that spread waste on their hauls from 1966 to 1969. At this site, uranium processor Cotter Corp dried the waste and shipped it to its facility in Colorado. The site remained contaminated for decades. In 1973, Cotter Corp took hazardous leached barium sulphate from the site and illegally dumped it in the West Lake Landfill. The material contained uranium residue.
In the late 1970s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which replaced the AEC, flew a helicopter over the West Lake Landfill. The test correctly identified two contaminated areas but missed huge areas of the landfill. Despite warnings from MDNR and activists that the contamination was likely more widespread, NRC’s conclusion stood for more than 40 years. However, in 2023, EPA announced that contamination at the site was more widespread than previously thought. In a periodic update to nearby communities in May 2024, EPA said it would add groundwater monitoring wells around the site, which is about a mile from the banks of the Missouri River. This came after contamination was detected at the edge of the landfill.
In its latest letter, MDNR argued that there may be radioactive waste in the Bridgeton portion of the landfill far closer to the subsurface smoulder than previously known. EPA spokesman Kellen Ashford said in an email that the agency “has no new evidence or information to support any claim that radiologically-impacted material … is present anywhere else in the Bridgeton Landfill”.
Ashford said the EPA is seeking more information. MDNR spokesman said in an emailed statement that the department agreed with the EPA’s most recent work and analysis at the site. Quinn did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the agency’s belief that the Bridgeton Landfill may contain radioactive waste. The landfill’s owner, Republic Services, said in an emailed statement that “there is no evidence whatsoever of radiologically impacted material … in Bridgeton Landfill”.
EPA has now announced it would expand the excavation at the West Lake Landfill because it found additional radioactive contamination. Under the revised plan, another 40 acres of the landfill will be included in the clean-up. Crews will need to dig up another 20,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, and the price of the cleanup will climb to almost $400m. In response to the EPA’s announcement MDNR said it supported the expanded clean-up and recommended that the EPA “considers being the lead agency for all the potentially affected properties.”
