Pre-excavation confirmation sampling complete at West Lake Landfill

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finished pre-excavation confirmation sampling at the West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Bridgeton. It’s a new milestone in the cleanup process to address radioactive contamination from radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project, which was illegally dumped in the 1970s.

“I am happy to announce that we are one step closer to meeting the goal set by Administrator Zeldin within the first three months of his term – accelerating the cleanup of the West Lake Landfill,” said EPA Region 7 Administrator Jim Macy. “The West Lake Landfill is a complex Superfund site. While we are encouraged by this progress, challenges may remain – and if they appear, we will tackle them head-on.”

Tom Mahler, remedial project manager with EPA Region 7, said more than 1,100 samples were taken from the ground at the West Lake Landfill, starting last summer.

“There were some locations that were sampled that showed we needed to expand the excavation a little bit, but this is something that we anticipated,” Mahler said. “This happens pretty much with any confirmation sampling program at any site, but we needed that information so that we could get very precise excavation plans and places where the material would come out of the ground.”

Mahler said that of the 1,100 samples, about 500 were in the expanded areas.

The sampling has provided precision in knowing where the contamination sits in the ground and allows the EPA to model it in 3D.

The EPA said that finishing the confirmation sampling was an important step in expediting the cleanup process by decreasing the time excavated areas are open. The completion also enables potentially responsible parties to finalize excavation plans for the Remedial Design to meet the West Lake Landfills’ remediation requirements.

“It allows us to control dust and odors and it provides a lot of extra safety for remediation workers while the construction is happening,” Mahler said.

He added, “Dig exactly and precisely where that contamination is, and not disturb any landfill waste unnecessarily. So we want to get in and we want to get out and get those holes back filled as quickly as possible.”

Construction is scheduled to start in late 2027. Mahler said there are several steps before that can start, including the design for the excavation, which will incorporate the data from the sampling.

“tThe next steps are with this data, the responsible parties doing the design are now incorporating this into revised plans for excavation, regrading the surface of the landfill to prep it for putting a final landfill cover on, doing that final landfill cover design and designing stormwater features to make sure in the long term, like when it rains, we’re not going to have erosion over that cover. So they’re taking all that data and feeding that into those remaining design pieces. We expect to have that in September of this year from the PRPs,” Mahler said.

He said other elements include an enforceable agreement for the remedial action. There’s also on-site work that needs to be completed ahead of time, with the building of a storage area for where the rad contamination goes before it’s shipped off, a material stockpile for soil that will be used to backfill.

Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STL and a resident, said the testing is a milestone she and the community had to fight for.

“Looking at the data they’re going to show us today from this sampling, I think that we understand really for the first time why this community is as sick as it is,” Chapman said.

She added, “We really had to hammer them to get them to come around and even do this testing. So I think that’s the thing. This testing was something that they told us wasn’t necessary, that we had to fight for. We won, and we fought for it, and we’ve got it now.”

Chapman said she and Just Moms STL have been waiting 13 years to see progress on the cleanup. She said the main concern is the illnesses believed to be linked to exposure due to this site.

“We’ve seen so many chronic diseases, rare cancers, cancers in young people, to people who graduated from the school, not even barely a mile from the site two years ago, that have cancer now. I mean, it’s really, this is a very sick community due to exposures, we believe, to that site. And I think it’s exciting to see how they’re going to clean it, right? Because we have to stop the exposures. But I think today is going to be bittersweet because we’re going to see for the first time what it is that made everybody so sick,” Chapman said.

Chapman said the completion of sampling is a good day to celebrate, but the community cannot let up on making sure the radioactive waste is removed. That’s something Just Moms STL is committed to see thing through.

“Our biggest hope is to say in five years that there’s no radioactive waste out and about in our community and that exposures have stopped,” Chapman said.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) is accepting applications to provide restitution to people with serious illnesses following exposure to radiation or their survivors.

The EPA has a Community Involvement Coordinator, Jessica Evans, who is serving as a liaison to the community.