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| Fig. 1: A map of the area surrounding the West Lake Landfill. [4] (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
In 1942, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works became the first industrial-scale producer of Uranium metal and Uranium oxide. Providing and processing all the Uranium oxide used in the Manhattan Project, its St. Louis, Missouri plant played a pivotal role in the first sustained nuclear reaction. Wartime urgency eclipsed the development of formal regulatory standards regarding the safe management of radioactive waste. In the years following World War II, hazardous materials were transported across the Greater St. Louis Area to a number of storage facilities including the West Lake Landfill, in Bridgeton, Missouri. Here, we provide a brief summary of the landfill's history and remaining present concerns. This sheds light on a decades-long struggle for social and environmental justice.
By 1970, major issues with contamination and disposal of hazardous byproducts were apparent to corporate stakeholders participating in Uranium processing as well as the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), an agency preceding today's Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A private corporation purchased large amounts of waste materials that were being held at the St. Louis Airport Storage Site for further processing. While some of the materials were haphazardly shipped to Canon City, Colorado, in 1973 an estimated 8,700 tons of leached Barium Sulfate was mixed with 39,000 tons of topsoil and disposed of in the West Lake Landfill. A 1974 AEC report records this unauthorized disposal of waste in violation of the Code of Federal Regulation 20.1301, which concerns dose limits. [1]
The West Lake Landfill site is located on a 212-acre parcel within the city limits of Bridgeton and near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. A map of the landfill and the surrounding area is shown in Fig. 1. The site was surveyed by several agencies throughout the 1980s when it was determined to contain a large quantity of soil contaminated with long-lived radioactive materials (Radium, Uranium, and Thorium). [2] The report also observed that some materials have no protective cover to prevent the spread of contamination and that the ground water in the vicinity was not adequately protected. In 1990, the landfill was added to the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund National Priorities List of improperly managed hazardous waste sites.
In 2000, a remedial investigation report identified airborne transport, rainwater runoff transport, sediment transport by soil erosion, and groundwater transport by leaching into groundwater as potential migration pathways for radionuclides from the landfill. [1,3] The assessment concluded that the site did not present significant health risks under its conditions at that time but deemed it necessary to protect public health from potential future risks. A Record of Decision issued by the EPA's Superfund authority in 2008 identified a selected remedy consisting of the installation of a landfill cover over a consolidated contamination area as well as site monitoring, surveillance, maintenance, and the use of institutional controls. [4] Ten years later, after the project was delayed to complete a feasibility study and further evaluations of remedial alternatives, a Record of Decision Amendment was signed by the EPA. [5] The amendment added the excavation, transportation, and disposal of radiologically impacted material with contamination levels exceeding 52.9 picoCuries per gram. The amendment considers materials located within 12 feet of the 2005 topographic surface that lies within the contaminated site known as operable unit 1, or OU-1.
A unique quality of the West Lake Landfill is its close proximity to agricultural, industrial, commercial, and residential communities. Surrounding populations have expressed frustration in response to the apparent inaction or avoidance of governing bodies to clean up the contamination. A lack of transparency with regard to management timelines along with the dismissal of health concerns have incited mistrust among citizens. At the heart of public agitation is a lack of access to information and cooperation from responsible parties. The 1988 Nuclear Regulatory Commission report, Radioactive Material in the West Lake Landfill identified two areas with excess levels of contamination within the landfill. While the report acknowledges difficulties in detecting buried materials with surface measurements, follow-up testing, site monitoring, and other remediation actions have been neglected for decades. [6] The information that is available lacks sufficient characterization of waste volume, contamination levels, or the risks associated with occupancy in and around the landfill.
Despite firm pushback from citizens, further surveillance of the site would not occur until complaints of malodorous emissions amassed in 2013. This is when a subsurface smoldering event near the waste repository was confirmed. Public outrage was reignited as news headlines announced that an underground landfill fire was threatening a nuclear waste site. Radiological surveys consisting of air sampling measurements were employed by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Sampling conducted regularly from 2013 to 2018 determined that levels of alpha/beta activity around the landfill were indistinguishable from levels in background locations. [7] These updates failed to soothe the community's concerns, as such measurements do not address the contamination risks of buried materials any more than the 1988 surface measurements.
Studies that directly address contamination levels in the Greater St. Louis Area are seemingly dismissed. Coldwater Creek and the St. Louis Airport Storage Site are nearby Superfund Sites located a few miles away from the landfill that were similarly contaminated as a result of mismanaged materials used in the Manhattan Project. Kaltofen et al. established the migration of contaminants from these sites, as well as the downtown Mallinckrodt plant, to surrounding populated areas by reviewing 229 soil and sediment samples from the region. Their study found that monitoring unsupported 210Pb was the most effective method for tracking Uranium-processing wastes and compared their measurements to activity limits for site remediation at similar facilities that contained hazardous materials. Remediation levels in soil at the former nuclear processing facility in Fernald, Ohio are 74 Bq/kg (approximately 2.7 piC/g) for unsupported 210Pb. Of the samples collected from a 200 km2 zone in northern St. Louis, 48% had concentrations exceeding the Fernald limit. Samples with the highest total 210Pb activity (350 Bq/kg is more than 12.9 pCi/g) were found in soils collected at known disposal sites. [8]
There is a relevant distinction between the EPA's 2018 Record of Decision Amendment (RODA) to address radiologically impacted materials (RIM) in excess of 52.9 pCi/g and the 12.9 pCi/g of unsupported 210Pb detected near the landfill. While the EPA plans to excavate materials containing combined Radium or combined Thorium in excess of the remediation limit, Katolfen et al. note the dangers of unsupported 210Pb as an indication of a migration of gaseous Radon and it's decay products. [5] Radon and Lead exposure can have adverse effects on human health (organ damage and increased cancer risk) and the ecosystem (habitat destruction and bioaccumulation within the food chain). A notable difference between the Ohio and Missouri Superfund sites is the RODA's 12 foot depth guideline for excavation. While the Fernald site's remediation threshold appears substantially lower than the evident contamination present at West Lake Landfill, the material source was presumably far less contained than those in the Greater St. Louis Area. The detection of elevated contamination indices in Missouri are not compared with other buried materials but rather with the above-ground silos, waste pits, etc. [9] at Fernald. These measurements demonstrate a much larger issue if contamination is measured not only from above the cover of a large mass of municipal waste and soil but also from beyond the boundaries of the landfill. The largest measurements of 210Pb were found primarily in drainage canals near the West Lake Landfill. This confirms the previously flagged groundwater transport pathway as an active hazard.
The RODA determined that containment is not a sufficient solution for waste management and that leaving the landfill in it's [2018] state would have long term effects. It also identified a need for further study within an established operable unit 3, OU-3. The designation of OU-3 allows forward action concerning OU-1, i.e. excavation and containment, while further remedial investigation, and if appropriate a feasibility study, are planned for sitewide groundwater. [5] The document identified Radium excess in several on-site wells and deemed other transport pathways (airborne, stormwater, sediment) as not significantly hazardous. Nonetheless, the extent of leeching remains unknown and, ultimately, the available data regarding contamination at the West Lake Landfill are still inadequate. The public remains agitated from the events leading to this disaster, and while there is still much to do, the EPA's actions have made forward progress on a challenging problem.
Start dates for the clean-up of the West Lake Landfill have been named and delayed repeatedly since the EPA signed the 2018 Record of Decision Amendment. Meanwhile, the voices of impacted residents demanding accountability and the efforts of researchers to shed light on the extent of contamination highlight the importance of sustained advocacy and scientific inquiry. From its origins as a receptacle for radioactive waste to the present-day struggles for transparency and remediation, this story of the West Lake Landfill encapsulates a complex narrative of historical oversight and ongoing community impacts. The issue of radioactive waste is often abstracted to be some theoretical future obstacle by advocates of nuclear energy production. However, issues of equity, public health, and environmental injustice remain a horrific modern reality for many communities across the nation.
The tale of destruction as a consequence of industrial gain is one that seems as old as time. Proprietary processes continue to pollute the landscape each day for financial and political benefit while the economic, environmental, and ethical expenses are passed down to consumers. The hazards of the chemical manufacturing techniques used to create nuclear energy or even more trusted items like pesticides and plastics are concealed from physical stakeholders such as consumers and inhabitants close to production centers. The only entities with the full extent of information necessary to remediate waste or successfully close the life cycle of these poisons are shielded from responsibility. The intersection of regulatory lapses, corporate decisions, and public health concerns underscores the need for effective monitoring, cleanup strategies, and accountability measures to safeguard public health and to protect the environment from future contamination incidents.
© Jillian Anderson. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] S. P. Price and A. Ginsburg, "St. Louis Site Remediation Task Force Report September 1996," St.Louis Site Remediation Task Force, September 1996.
[2] L. F. Booth et al., "Radiological Site of the West Lake Landfille - St. Louis County, Missouri," U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG/CR-2722, May 1982.
[3] G. Wolk, "St. Louis's Scandalous Nuclear History," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2016.
[4] "Record of Decision - West Lake Landfill Site, Bridgeton, Missouri, Operable Unit 1," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 2008.
[5] "Record of Decision Amendment - West Lake Landfill Site, Bridgeton, Missouri, Operable Unit 1," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, September 2018.
[6] "Radioactive Material in the West Lake Landfill," U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NUREG-1308, June 1988.
[7] "Bridgeton Sanitary Landfill - Radiological Air Sampling" Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, October 2013.
[8] M. P. J. Kaltofen, R. Alvarez, and L. Hixson, "Tracking Legacy Radionuclides in St. Louis, Missouri, via Unsupported 210Pb," J. Environ. Radioact. 1534, 104 (2016).
[9] "Fernald Preserve," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, June 2010.
