Flames shot to the surface from the burning fire below from the Bridgeton Superfund site landfill. It was 5:30 in the evening, when people were sitting down to dinner and sirens could be heard throughout the community. Just Moms STL have been fighting to get this site cleaned up and local families relocated for years. The flames shooting into the air was terrifying to local families. What’s in the smoke? Whats in the odors? Recently the Missouri Depart. Of Health released a study that clearly demonstrated that families in the community were exposed to unhealthy levels of chemicals due to the releases from the underground fire. A meeting is planned to discuss their findings on Nov. 15th. Now this.
“We’ve been fighting this issue, now, for six years. We have people who live just a half-mile from this site, right over the hill,” said Nickel. “I don’t want to take any chances. When we got here, the wind was blowing in different directions and we didn’t smell anything,” Nickel said. ” Now it seems the wind is kind of moving around a little bit and we’re getting strong odors.”
“After hitting it, with a lot of water and foam, we were not able to extinguish it. It appears at the time, from my belief, it was a gas-fed fire from the gases generated from the landfill underneath,” Fire departments assistant Chief LaVancy. It took almost over two hours to put the fire out. Black toxic smoke went throughout the community during that time.
The community is still pushing EPA to relocate them. The event alarmed nearby residents, who have been concerned about the underground smoldering fire at the Bridgeton Landfill for several years. The landfill is also adjacent to the West Lake Landfill, a Superfund site that contains World War II-era radioactive waste. To view video from community leaders monitoring the fire click here.
Category: Superfund News
15 Pueblo-area residents graduated from the EPA’s Superfund Job Training Initiative program on September 27th. Graduates of the program now have the necessary skills to be considered for future jobs with the environmental contractors cleaning up lead and arsenic contamination at the site. Read more.
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has determined that past exposure to sulfur-based compounds in the air near the Bridgeton landfill may have harmed the health of area residents and workers. Read more.
The EPA assessing the vulnerability of at least 40 toxic waste sites that could be damaged by Hurricane Florence in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. But that review does not include dozens of inland Superfund sites that potentially could be flooded by the storm’s fluctuating path. Read more.
NEWS ADVISORY
September 11, 2018
Contact: Lois Gibbs, Peoples Action/Center for Health, Environment & Justice
Phone: 703-627-9483 Lgibbs@chej.org
“Mother of Superfund,” Lois Gibbs and Local Leaders
Deliver Strong Messages to Congress to Reinstate “Polluter Pay” Fee
Leaders meet with EPA high ranking staff about Superfund Sites
What: Members of grassroots groups are meeting with Congressional representatives asking them to be a Superhero and support the Polluter Pays Fees. This is part of a nationwide action joining other local groups across the country.
Leaders will also be meeting with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at 2:00 on September 12th. This meeting is part of an on-going commitment by EPA to meet with leaders on a quarterly basis organized by the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.
Who: Lois Gibbs, Peoples Action/Center for Health, Environment & Justice
Charles Powell, PANIC, Birmingham, Alabama – 35th Street Site
Jackie Young, Texas Health & Environment Alliance, Houston, Texas — San Jacinto Waste Pits
Dawn Chapman, Karen Nickel, Just Moms STL, St. Louis, Missouri –West Lake/Bridgeton Site
Linda Robles, EJ Task Force, Tucson, AZ — TARP Superfund site
Larry Davis, People Against Hazardous Waste Landfills, East Chicago, Indiana – East Chicago Superfund Site
When: September 12th at 2:00 PM –
Where: USEPA Headquarter, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC
Details: Groups say that reinstating the “Polluter Pays” fee would stabilize the Superfund Program and accelerate the cleanup of contaminated sites. Center for Health, Environment & Justice claims that a fundamental problem with the Superfund program are due to inadequate funding. Funding for Orphan sites, testing, cleanup, legal action and technical assistance grants for communities at superfund sites.
This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the Love Canal events, which was the impetus of establishing the Superfund Program.
Coal is dirty. That is an unsurprising fact of coal, every process involving coal is dirty. Mining coal is extremely energy intensive and can destroy whole ecosystems, burning coal produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide, but perhaps the dirtiest part of coal is disposing of coal ash.
The United States burns over 800 million tons of coal each year to produce 30% of its energy. This burning of coal produces 110 million tons of coal ash annually according to the EPA. Coal is really just ancient carbonized plants, burning it produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually and disrupts the Earth’s carbon cycle. Once the coal is burnt and has released all of its possible potential energy, the remanence is ash, just like you would find in your fireplace, only this ash has a deadly secret. It contains lead, arsenic, mercury, chlorine, chromium, barium, and selenium. Despite its toxic nature, coal ash is considered “non-hazardous waste”. That’s right, waste that contains toxic levels of lead and arsenic can be considered non-hazardous.
So, what does the United States do with this “non-hazardous”, yet very toxic coal ash? The ash is typically put into ditches and filling it with water, but these coal ash ponds are more than often unlined, so the toxic coal ash comes in direct contact with the surrounding environment. The coal ash in unlined ponds can easily leach into the ground and contaminate nearby water sources with its deadly toxins. Coal Ash is the second largest industrial waste stream and it only saw the first set of regulations in 2015. Only after there have been over 200 known coal ash spills and contamination events. The new regulation requires that all coal ash ponds must be lined and companies must regularly inspect their ponds, which is a step in the right direction, but the simple fact is that this waste is toxic and needs to be treated as such.
People living within one mile of an unlined coal ash pond have a 2,000 times greater risk of having cancer than what is deemed safe by the EPA. Communities near unlined coal ash ponds are drinking water poisoned by lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals. A coal ash pond in Tennessee failed in 2008 and flooded 3,000 acres and poisoned communities. Not regulating coal ash as the toxic and hazardous waste that it is doesn’t help families or communities, it only aids big coal industries. America, we deserve better, we deserve our government to put families and communities before big polluting corporations.
While the EPA’s decision not to place the North Birmingham Alabama 35th Avenue Alternatives Superfund site on the NPL was disappointing to many in the community, it was perhaps understandable given the strong vocal opposition with the state. It is now abundantly clear, as evidenced by the July 19, 2018 convictions of a former state legislator, a business executive and attorney on a number of federal charges including conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery, that the EPA’s initial public review process was undermined by an illegal misinformation scheme to prevent the North Birmingham site from being added to the NPL. Being listed provides more opportunities for citizen participation, grants and hard deadlines for action.
Jimmy Smith has lived in Collegeville all of his life. At 85 years old he’s seen the community during it highs and lows. He’s lived side by side with contamination from what was the life blood of the community: the steel industry. He suspected something wasn’t right when three members of his family, himself included, were diagnosed with various cancers. Smith said, “It just so happened out of my four daughters, two of them had cancer. My oldest daughter, the preacher of the family, the good Lord called her home as a result of the cancer.” Read more.
“Even before Hassan Amjad’s family buried him on a West Virginia hillside, phone calls flooded his daughter’s office.
The callers remembered him as a kind man, boundless in his curiosity, fiery in his convictions, who had long maintained a medical clinic in nearby Oak Hill, in an old whitewashed house with a squeaky screen door and creaking wood floors.
Her father had made it his mission to get justice — or at least answers — for the people of this once-thriving coal town an hour south of the state capital. He told anyone willing to listen that industrial chemicals dumped decades ago by the now-defunct Shaffer Equipment Co. had long been poisoning residents.” Read More
“Anytime you operate near any Superfund site, it’s very noteworthy …The fire’s probably the most simple thing that you have to worry about.”
Asbestos still lingers in Operable Unit 3’s trees and soil. Research shows that when this material burns, the majority of asbestos fibers stay in the ash rather than go airborne. But the fibers’ direction and impact can be difficult to predict, especially in a large fire. Read more.
A 2013 lawsuit regarding the Bridgeton landfill finally reached a settlement in Missouri courts. The settlement holds Bridgeton accountable and is a step in the right direction according to Missouri’s Attorney General. Republic Services will still manage the site. Additionally, Bridgeton will create a$12.5 million restitution fund and pay $3.5 million in fines and damages.
Read More.