Underground fire 300 meters from nuclear waste causes St. Louis to hatch contingency plan
Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially "catastrophic event" that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city's main airport.
Cold War/Manhattan Project nuclear waste illegally dumped in a north St. Louis landfill that was designated a Superfund site in 1990 but never cleaned up, is now threatened by an underground fire that has been burning since "at least" 2010. The waste was dumped in 1973 by Mallinckrodt Chemical company's uranium processing operations into an unlined waste pit in the West Lake Landfill, situated next to the Bridgeton Landfill in north St. Louis. Both operations are owned by Republic Services, and both are sited in an alluvial flood plain where migration of the nuclear waste cannot be managed.
In an independent analysis report issued in March of 2014 to Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, DNR Director Sara Parker Pauley and Missouri Senators Roy Blunt and Clair McCaskill, it is noted that evacuation of the surrounding population may be necessary as the fire approaches the bulk of nuclear waste, and that a planned pit-buffer between the burning sections and the Superfund site could not be excavated because it is already contaminated with alpha-emitting Radium [226, 228] and Thorium [230, 232] isotopes.
There are 3 residential neighborhoods, 10 schools, 11 churches, a hospital complex, the region's international airport and the Missouri River - drinking water source for 300,000 people - within 5 miles of the landfill.
The EPA has been unable to come up with any plan for cleaning up the rad-waste over the past 25 years since the facility was designated (by them) a Superfund site, but says things are absolutely not dangerous "because the site is fenced to prevent public access." Oh, and that fence (there's a photograph of it in the report) is chain link.
Reminds me of the plant boundary perimeter at the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant in Homestead, Florida where it borders on the Everglades. Nice chain link fence dotted every so often with metal signs reading, "No Radiation Beyond This Point." Because radiation is so well-behaved and respectful of metal signs and all... Oy.
The linked report listed some findings from analysis of existing field data, most of it compiled by Republic Services itself, to evaluate the company's ~300 meters of separation claim -
• Radwastes spread. A significant fraction of the radioactive wastes have migrated widely out from Area 1 and around the landfill, if not also beyond.
• Radwastes will reach Area 1 soon. The fire has spread from the South into the North and is mostly likely to reach Area 1 within the next 1.5 years.
• Radioactivity is being released now. The radiotoxins have been in contact with the intense heat of the fire's core for the past year, and dangerous alpha particles have and continue to be released into the surrounding area, although their impact in cancers and death will be delayed for years by lag effects.
• Radioactive releases cannot be managed. Because the landfills are unlined and sited in an alluvial flood plain, the existing radiological problems, unlike odors, cannot be managed, and radioactivity will continue to be released at least until the fire burns itself out, which could take 20 more years.
• Buried radwastes threaten water supplies. Because of its location in a flood plain, the radioactive wastes that still remain in Area 1, and the much larger contaminated Area 2 nearby, represent a serious risk to the surface and groundwater systems in the area, and EPA has shown itself incapable of acting.
• Republic is proceeding too slowly to protect Area 1. The Attorney General's decision to force Republic to proceed directly to excavate a fire break around Area 1 was sound; but now the company is slow walking the preliminary site characterization studies because it says it was surprised to find the path of the planned barrier contaminated with radioactivity.
Seems like a "potential nuclear catastrophe" should be enough to light a fast-burning fire under all the state and federal officials responsible for preventing it if it can be prevented. If it cannot (or simply will not) be prevented, then families closest to the facility and beneath the prevailing plume path should already be undergoing evacuation.
As of March 2014 the underground fire was estimated to be within 1.5 years of reaching the nuclear waste. It is now October of 2015.
More Links:
List and links to expert witness reports
Request for DOE to include West Lake in FUSRAP [Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program]