Florissant City Council Examines West Lake Landfill Issue

Despite the lack of movement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the West Lake Landfill, along with University City resident Kay Drey are looking to take action.

The council will discuss a possible resolution for the landfill during its executive session Monday. The resolution would ask for the Bridgeton-based landfill to not be used by a trash hauler at this time.

English said that the council previously passed a resolution in 2008 regarding its concern for the landfill and its possible harm to Florissant’s drinking water.

According to the EPA, the 200-acre site was originally home to limestone quarrying for more than 45 years. In 1973, though, two areas of the site became contaminated with radioactive waste from uranium ore processing residues.

The concern from Drey and other residents is that the landfill might pollute the Missouri River, which sits more than 5 miles upstream of the site in the Missouri floodplain and serves as a base for drinking water for the area.

“It couldn’t be in a worse place in the United States, as far as I’m concerned,” said Drey, who’s worked on issues relating to radioactive waste for close to four decades.

Previously, the EPA offered a Record of Decision that the landfill would be covered and scheduled for long-term monitoring. However, further studying has been done, but no other action has been taken on the situation.

On Thursday, Sen. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) fielded questions regarding the landfill at the North County Legislative Reception. Since it's a federal issue, she said, the City of Florissant will have to speak with Sen. William Lacy Clay’s office.

She said she’s working to get the two together to discuss the issue.

Earth and planetary professor Bob Criss of Washington University has spoken and written a number of items about the landfill.

In 2010, he visited the landfill and said at that time that the landfill is in close proximity to groundwater.

“The takeaway message here is the landfill is unlined … it would not even be permitted to put your trash can—your waste from your kitchen—in this landfill today,” Criss said in a St. Louis American news video on the local push for a federal clean-up of the site.

“This is not responsible,” he said. “It would not be allowed today. We should put pressure on the authorities to clean this up.”

Drey said that no other Record of Decision has been issued but that there are three possible options for the landfill, including:

• Leave the radioactive waste and cover it, as proposed by the original Record of Decision;
• Dig up the radioactive waste from the floodplain and cover it elsewhere;
• Clean up the waste and send it to a deserted area where no one could be harmed.

Drey said the third option is what she’s hoping can be achieved and one she hopes Florissant can help.

“We need Florissant to pass a resolution,” she said. “We want them to know that citizens are opposed to the landfill staying there.”