WASHINGTON D.C. (KMOX) — Experts said it would likely take an act of Congress, and that’s what’s happening — the U.S. Senate has passed a measure to transfer remediation of the West Lake Landfill from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The measure, sponsored by U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt, would put the landfill under the Army Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, or FUSRAP, which is already cleaning up sites around the St. Louis area.
Ed Smith, with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, says the agency change wouldn’t slow down cleanup — the Corps is already involved and familiar.
“One, to help install the isolation barrier, the proposed barrier, to keep the smoldering fire away from the radioactive waste,” says Smith, listing ways the Corps is familiar with the landfill and its issues. “It also signed an inter-agency agreement to help the EPA come up with its Record of Decision Amendment.”
Smith says the the Corps should have been in charge from the start.
Reps. Lacy Clay and Ann Wagner have introduced companion legislation in the House. Smith and several others are heading to Washington next week to lobby for it.
Republic Services, which owns and operates the West Lake Landfill, is opposed to the measure and is lobbying against it, Smith says.
