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By Carol Arnett

Florissant Mayor Tom Schneider and city engineering  staff do not agree with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when it comes to the West Lake Landfill.  The EPA recently released results of a study on the 200-acre landfill, which is off St. Charles Rock Road in Bridgeton.

At issue is radioactive waste that is in the landfill. Florissant is involved because the city’s drinking water could be affected by the landfill waste. A large portion of North County obtains drinking water from a facility eight miles down river from the landfill. This intake facility is not mentioned in the EPA study.

Schneider said in an interview that he had three main problems with the EPA study. “It did not make any mention or provision for seismic activity,” he said, noting that the area is in the new Madrid Seismic Zone. The study also did not consider the possible solution of enclosing the material in a watertight containment system to prevent ground water from being contaminated, he said.

The third problem, Schneider said, was that the EPA did not, in his opinion, take enough samples from the site for a thorough study.

Schneider said that he, Public Works Director Lou Jearls, and City Engineer Timothy Barrett all looked at the study. “We’re lucky that our city engineer has experience with this type of study,” Schneider said. Barrett has been a geotechnical engineer for four years before coming to the city.

Schneider compared the EPA’s views on the landfill to its views on the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD). “They made MSD put measures into place to prevent the sewers from overflowing, which doesn’t have much effect downstream in the river, but they’re letting this go,” he said.

The EPA study offers three options for dealing with the waste. Schneider and the city staff who reviewed the study do not like any of the three options.

“The bottom line is that our position is that the studies are incomplete. Everyone needs more information before taking action,” Schneider said.