The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency anticipates issuing its final remedy plan for cleanup of radiologically contaminated material at the West Lake Landfill in Missouri within a period of months, according to an agency spokesman.
The EPA was responding to a query from RadWaste Monitor regarding language added to Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Yucca Mountain legislation that would require the agency within one year of the bill’s enactment to submit a final remedy and schedule for remediation at West Lake.
With support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Missouri Natural Resources Department, the EPA is finalizing a remedial investigation addendum and final feasibility study for the landfill, a segment of a U.S. Superfund Site near St. Louis that contains waste from former uranium production facility at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis. The documents would be used in developing the final remedy.
“While I can’t give you a precise timeline due to the nature of the technical review, EPA anticipates proposing a final remedy within months, not years,” agency spokesman Ben Washburn said by email, noting there is no current requirement that EPA provide the remedy decision to Congress.
Shimkus’ bill is aimed at augmenting the federal government’s authority to develop the long-planned and fiercely contested Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The measure has made it out of committee, but the schedule for a potential House floor vote was not known this week.
The West Lake Landfill language was added to the bill at the request of Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), whose office did not respond to several requests for comment.
The EPA placed the 200-acre site on its National Priorities List in 1990, but has been criticized in more recent years for its management of remediation — with some lawmakers and others calling for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take over the project.
The draft version of the EPA’s final feasibility study for West Lake lists a number of cleanup options: no action, cover and contain, as planned but not carried out under a 2008 EPA record of decision; extracting all radiologically contaminated material and disposing of it off-site; and two partial removal options.
“After EPA proposes a final remedy for the site, the agency will hold a public comment period before issuing an amendment to the 2008 Record of Decision (ROD), at which time the agency will notify congressional offices,” Washburn wrote.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt would have to sign the ROD amendment for any Superfund Site cleanup remedy costing $50 million or more. Apart from no action, the remedies listed in the draft final feasibility study all exceed that amount: cover and contain would be the least expensive at $67 million for capital construction, followed by the two partial excavation options at $313 million and $361 million, and the capital cost for complete remediation coming in at $616 million.
Once the EPA selects its remedy, it would begin negotiations with the potentially responsible parties for West Lake on an enforceable deal to carry out the work. That would be followed by remedial design and remedial action.
The remedial design phase involves establishing the technical and engineering for the selected cleanup remedy. The action phase then involves carrying out that remedy.
Based on the selected remedy, the work is projected to take anywhere from 2.7 years to 13.4 years.
