Chris Schneidmiller
RW Monitor
12/11/2015
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday ordered three businesses to develop and submit a plan for preventing surface fires at the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Bridgeton, Mo.
The order is a response to an Oct. 24 brush fire at West Lake Landfill, which contains radioactive waste from former uranium production at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St Louis. There has also been concern over the waste’s close proximity to a smoldering fire at the Bridgeton Landfill, which is part of the overall Superfund site, due to the potential for the blaze to spread radiological materials.
The EPA’s Unilateral Administrative Order covers Bridgeton Landfill LLC and Rock Road Industries, both of which are subsidiaries of Republic Services, the West Lake Landfill site operator; and Cotter Corp., which owned the waste that a contractor deposited illegally at the landfill. Cotter is owned by General Atomics, but responsibility in this situation falls to its former owner, Exelon.
The three entities have 21 days to deliver their report to the EPA. The document must include a plan and timeline for:
- Placing fire-resistant material in short order over areas where “radiologically impacted material” (RIM) is close to or at ground level;
- Clearing trees and brush in those areas in the site’s Operable Unit-1, which contains radiological materials, and installing fire-resistant material over the cleared zones;
- Testing to ensure all areas with RIM at or close to the surface is covered;
- Air monitoring during the period of vegetation removal and cover installation; and
- Maintaining the covers until the hazard is permanently resolved.
“This EPA order requires swift action by the parties to ensure that the risks of a surface fire, and the effects of any potential surface fire, are greatly reduced,” EPA Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague said in a press release. “EPA will continue to use its authority at the site to protect surrounding communities from any potential threats posed by the West Lake Landfill. Putting a stable cover over the RIM located at the surface is not the final remedy. It is a common-sense engineering control to address the challenge of surface fires until a final remedy is selected.”
The three businesses must also deliver within 14 days a “framework” for an incident management plan at OU-1. This plan, according to the press release, will:
- Detail a means for 24-hour monitoring of the site;
- Define responses to surface fires or other hazard situations at OU-1;
- Prepare for providing personnel to ensure the plan can be implemented at any time;
- Set up a notification system in case of emergency for local emergency personnel and regulatory agencies including the EPA, Missouri Natural Resources Department, and Missouri Health and Senior Services Department;
- Describe the fire suppression systems in place; and
- Describe the measures for dealing with a surface fire.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoted Hague as saying the companies could carry out the fire defense operations in weeks rather than months. Republic Services will finish this work “in a safe and timely manner,” a spokesman said in a brief telephone interview. Exelon had not responded to a request for comment by press time.
The businesses have also agreed to an enforceable schedule for considering a permanent answer to the threat, according to the EPA press release. They are required to take particular steps that will enable the EPA to issue a final plan no later than the close of 2016.
The agency also said Thursday that testing of soil samples from the site of the Oct. 24 fire showed they were generally comparable with readings for naturally occurring background radiation.
