Police in Bridgeton, Mo., on Friday arrested 12 people who were preventing vehicle access to the West Lake and Bridgeton landfills, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Protesters said they were concerned about the proximity of radioactive waste at the West Lake Landfill, material from a former uranium production facility at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis, to an underground fire smoldering since 2010 at the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill, the St. Louis Fox News affiliate reported.
Several of the protesters Friday morning and afternoon were chained to barrels, tires, and rebar at one road to the landfills, according to police. They were all removed shortly after 4:30 p.m., the Post-Dispatch reported.
Individual barrels had the names of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), and Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), all with the words “FUSRAP Now” below each name. That was a clear reference to the continued call by local residents and officials for the Environmental Protection Agency to after 25 years turn over management of the West Lake Landfill Superfund cleanup to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program.
The EPA as of February was still preparing a final soil cleanup remedy for West Lake. The agency had previously planned to submit the plan by the end of 2016, but extended the schedule in December.
Authorities on Friday filed trespassing, resisting arrest, and peace disturbance charges against 10 protesters, the newspaper reported. Interfering charges were filed against two other protesters.
