St. Louis landfill fire keeps smoldering

Residents in southern St. Louis County, Missouri, have continued to express concerns about a landfill there that has been smoldering since 2010 and is located adjacent to another landfill believed to contain radioactive materials.

St. Louis-based public radio stations have created a web page that is updated as new information becomes available about the Bridgeton landfill fire.

According to station KWMU, the underground landfill fire “has been smoldering since at least December 2010.” While materials in the Bridgeton Landfill are considered to be municipal solid waste (MSW) and not especially hazardous, the property is adjacent to another landfill called the West Lake Landfill.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the West Lake Landfill “contains World War II-era uranium processing residues illegally dumped there by a local contractor in 1973.”

The West Lake Landfill became an EPA Superfund site in 1990, but no attempts have subsequently been made to remove material from the site.

Since the Bridgeton Landfill fire was discovered, some analyses have concluded that the fire is creeping toward the West Lake Landfill, though there has not been complete agreement on that or, if it is advancing, then at what rate of speed.

Subsequently, concerned residents, property owners, politicians and government agencies have been negotiating how and whether to build a firewall between the two landfills, and to determine whether the EPA or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should have jurisdiction over the project, according to KWMU.