BRIDGETON • People who live and work near a burning landfill lashed out at state health officials Monday night at a meeting to discuss a report about the risks of breathing fumes from the site.
The report on the Bridgeton Landfill, released last September by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, does not adequately address residents’ concerns that the site is contributing to family members’ cancers, birth defects and other chronic health conditions, according to some speakers at the meeting held at the Bridgeton Banquet Center on Natural Bridge Road.
Exposure to fumes from the landfill may have caused breathing problems, headache, nausea or fatigue among residents and nearby workers, according to the report based on air monitoring data from 2013 to 2016.
“It’s three years old now, people need more current information,” said former Bridgeton city councilwoman Linda Eaker, who called the meeting “unfulfilling.”
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The report says that there is no increased risk of cancer or other chronic diseases from breathing air around the landfill. The sulfurous fumes may aggravate asthma or other breathing problems, and people should stay inside as much as possible when the odors are offensive, state health officials have long advised.
Tonya Mason, a longtime resident of the neighboring Spanish Village subdivision, said she is “sick and tired” of being told to stay inside.
“You’re telling us don’t enjoy your life, but you can’t help us,” Mason said.
Jonathan Garoutte, administrator of the state agency’s environmental public health division, said he appreciated residents’ concerns and while he doesn’t know what it’s like to live in Spanish Village, he wanted to provide them with scientific data about the situation. Air monitoring around the site has shown a downward trend in foul odors and emissions, he said, while acknowledging the problem has not been eliminated.
“We understand that going inside doesn’t always fix it,” Garoutte told the crowd of about 200.
The shuttered landfill has been smoldering underground since at least 2010, followed by reports of foul odors from the site. Residents’ concerns are compounded by the adjoining West Lake Landfill, where Cold War-era nuclear waste was dumped in the 1970s. A 2015 federal health report showed no risks to residents from the radioactive materials at the site.
Residents have long been concerned the underground fire would reach the radioactive materials. A 2016 report from the St. Louis County health department acknowledged that higher reported rates of stress levels in the community could be linked to the decades-long saga of the toxic waste site.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced in September a plan for a partial excavation of the nuclear waste at West Lake Landfill. At the meeting, residents said they worry that the upcoming work could kick up additional toxins, and Garoutte said the state would be monitoring the cleanup project.
“The oversight of this landfill is not stopping just because we reached a milestone with this public health consultation,” he said.
Post-Dispatch coverage of the West Lake and Bridgeton landfills
A landfill is on fire in Bridgeton, and while such "smoldering events" do happen in landfills, this one is close to World War II-era radioactive waste. The Bridgeton Landfill abuts the West Lake Landfill. West Lake is where nuclear waste, the remnants of the Manhattan Project, was dumped decades ago.
Here is a highlight of some of the Post-Dispatch coverage of the landfill, the radiation and community concerns.
April 2022: Maps show contamination extending up to and, in at least a few places, slightly beyond the fence line of the Superfund site.
March 2022: Residents and officials emerged frustrated and concerned after hearing details about newly discovered areas of contamination.
On Sept. 30, a two-year-old lawsuit aimed at getting Mallinckrodt to help shoulder the looming $205 million cleanup at West Lake was dismissed…
The public and private entities responsible for covering the $205 million cost of the landfill’s cleanup are submitting design-phase work plan…
The report does not adequately address residents’ concerns that the site is contributing to family members’ cancers, birth defects and other c…
Now the owner of the Superfund trying to rope a company it contends is owned by the New York-based financial services giant Citigroup into the…
Republic Services — the waste hauler whose subsidiary, Bridgeton Landfill, owns the radioactive West Lake Landfill Superfund site — may have s…
Some of the debate and division that has long surrounded the high profile West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Bridgeton was not immediately d…
The agency said late Wednesday that it would slightly modify its earlier proposal to partly remove the site’s contamination, employing “more f…
Remedial work at the landfill has reduced emissions to levels that are unlikely to harm most people, according to state health officials.
The money could be used only as “compensation and restitution” to communities within a four-mile radius of the now-shuttered landfill and to p…
“It’s a small step for a big problem. There’s a lot more that needs to happen,” Chappelle-Nadal said. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”
As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces a mounting list of ethics and spending complaints, many locally wonder how…
But at a packed and emotionally charged meeting in Bridgeton on Tuesday night, scores of speakers provided vocal, and largely critical, feedba…
The EPA said the proposed remedy, which it calls “Excavation Plus,” is expected to take five years to implement and will remove the “majority”…
The long string of speakers shared personal experiences — often recounting health complications suffered by loved ones — and voiced strong opi…
The results stand in contrast to a lawsuit filed in November by an area couple, Michael and Robbin Dailey, alleging that elevated levels of co…
Based on sampling conducted at the site, the state found "statistically significant evidence of contamination" affecting groundwater at and ar…
Fear, fueled by the popular perception of radiation risks and the slow response to the fire by landfill operator Republic Services and the Env…
The new map puts some of the newly discovered material in the northern quarry of the Bridgeton Landfill. But DNR has not raised any concerns i…
Construction was still months away because the agency has yet to hammer out a legal agreement with the company that would lead the project.
The county’s emergency plan says if the fire reaches contaminated areas of West Lake, “there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be rele…
“I feel like my best course of action is to uproot my family and move as far away as I can.”
“I really want to assure the communities and families in St. Louis that there is no imminent threat,” EPA spokesman Curtis Carey said.
Companies potentially liable for the waste - and the cost of cleanup disagree on approach to the work.
“There’s some evidence that there could be other waste streams there,” said Craig Nesbit, a spokesman for Exelon Generation.
The EPA had said the waste was contained within fenced areas of the adjacent West Lake Landfill.
Many want to see a full-scale risk assessment from the EPA that takes into account a landfill fire. The lack of a fire risk assessment has bee…
That frustration boiled over at an October meeting between residents and officials from the EPA. Some attendees shoved chairs and stormed out …
Officials said they would bring Pattonville parents’ concerns to the attention of the CDC for a possible evaluation of health risks at the two…
If the city’s concerns about bird strikes aren’t addressed, plans to build a barrier between the burning underground trash at Bridgeton Landfi…
Republic Services says dealing with the landfills has cost $125 million thus far, one of the most expensive environmental problems it faces. T…
Republic Services agreed to additional carbon monoxide testing to monitor movement of the fire in the Bridgeton Landfill that has been stoking…
The Army Corps of Engineers will help build an isolation barrier between an underground fire at the Bridgeton landfill and radioactive materia…
Anyone who accepts the settlement is prevented from filing any further nuisance claims for property damage due to the landfill’s odor.
He said a 2008 decision to leave radioactive wastes at West Lake in place ignored the fact that the site was in the Missouri River floodplain,…
“We’ve had odors a few times since then,” said Kathy Bell who lives in the Spanish Village neighborhood just southwest of the landfill. “But, …
The EPA had no answers to the questions and criticisms of those pushing to have the radioactive waste excavated and disposed of in a licensed …
Republic Services Inc. will place a plastic cap on its Bridgeton landfill by early September to control foul odors and extinguish an undergrou…
“The situation up there is distressing and terrible, and anybody who is living around that site has every right to complain,” he said.
The odor coming from the Bridgeton Landfill is foul-smelling, but it’s not a health threat, according to testing done by the state this month.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources first reported indications of a subsurface fire in January 2011.
February 2022: Years after charting a cleanup strategy, the EPA did not offer clear details or goals about how much longer that work might last.
