Landfill Fire Threatens Nuclear Waste Site Outside St. Louis

In 1969 it was discovered that the site was leaching due to a lack of a bottom liner. The landfill was leaching volatile organic compounds (VOC), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and explosive landfill gases (LFG).

The area where Rollins Environmental Services Incorporated is located is known as Cancer Alley because it is one of the most toxic areas in the country with residents claiming a host of numerous health conditions. Cancer Alley is the 107 mile stretch along the Mississippi River that runs between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. African American composed 98.9 of those residents. Cancer Alley alone has over 150 environmental hazards and waste dumps. More than 60 percent of these waste dumps are located in or near communities that are predominantly people of color. In fact, Louisiana has tax exemptions and business friendly policies for business who want to relocated to Cancer Alley. Many companies move their operations to Cancer Alley to take advantage of business friendly standards and policies. The people of color in Louisiana do not have a lot of political and social power and are unable to challenge the ways in which their communities were being changed that take a relaxed view of environmental standards and health issues. Most of the time the people who live in these areas are not aware that their illness is coming from the toxic waste that these waste dumps produced, nor are they aware of the creation of these waste dumps in their communities. For example, Mary McCastle, who is a resident of Alsen, Louisiana

To find out more about the illegal dumping that has occurred around the city I conducted interviews at Lone Star Disposal Center and Ralston Road Landfill, I was able to gather some information from both sources about a few of the hazards that can occur because of these spots, where I can find additional info and where a few of the hot spots are that illegal dumpers usually dump their

Assessments began to take place in the mid 1980’s, shortly after the site made the National Priorities list in 1983. Relevant standards and guidance levels were used to measure the effect of the Helen Kramer Landfill. The initiation of the EPA’s remedial investigation and feasibility study deemed the nature of the Helen Kramer landfill as an extreme risk to the environment, characterizing the site “by randomly placed, uncompacted, and uncovered refuse, with numerous settlement cracks which vented methane and water vapor” (2). According to the EPA, several million gallons of chemical wastes and over two million cubic yards of solid waste were estimated to have been disposed of at the landfill (2). Studies were performed by the EPA, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, federal natural resource trustees in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to evaluate the onsite and nearby environmental effects due to the landfill. During these studies, contaminants were detected in air, sediments, and aquifers, including high levels of volatile organic compounds and heavy metals in the air and sediments. VOCS and heavy metals expose humans to carcinogens, developmental toxicants, and reproductive toxicants. The assessments also detected numerous contaminants such as (but not limited to),

Prior to the late 1950s the site was used as an excavation pit for sand and gravel. The quarry was subsequently used for the disposal of waste materials from 1950 until 1966. 10 acres of the 28-acre site has been used as a disposal area for several hazardous waste contaminants that included volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, tetrahydrofuran, toluene, vinyl chloride and xylene; other organics such as phenols and PCBs as well as lead. The main area of contamination is in the southern half of the 10 acre area which encompasses about 6 acres which

Coal Combustion Residuals, often referred to as coal ash, are currently considered exempt wastes under an amendment to RCRA, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. They are residues from the combustion of coal in power plants and captured by pollution control technologies, like scrubbers. Potential environmental concerns from coal ash pertain to pollution from impoundment and landfills leaching into ground water and structural failures of impoundments, like that which occurred at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plant in Kingston, Tennessee. The need for national management criteria was emphasized by the December 2008 spill of CCRs from a surface impoundment near

The next Superfund that has greatly influenced the environment of Butler County is the Skinner Landfill. The Landfill is on 85 acres in West Chester (2). The facility was privately owned and was never actually licensed, so it closed in the 1970's (5). The landfill contains about 100 drums of chlorinated organics, and heavy metals. Along with the presence of the drums is the fact that a nearby lagoon was once used as a disposal for these contaminants, and that the site had problems with unauthorized dumping (5). Fortunately, no contaminants have been discovered leaving the site (5). The presence of these

John-Manville Corp is the site of 150-acre asbestos disposal. Around 3 million cubic yards of specification products and wastewater sludge were disposed of at the site. They stopped operations in the site in 1998 and former manufacturing buildings were torn down in 2000-2001. Asbestos is the main problem, during clean up asbestos contamination was found outside of the fence line. Outboard Marine Corporation is on the north section of the Waukegan Harbor. It was an outboard-boat-motor manufacturing plant. The contaminants include PCB’s, OMC that are used in hydraulic fluids, and TCE. Yeoman Creek Landfill is on the northwest side of Waukegan. The landfill was open from 1959-1969. The landfill did not have a bottom liner and the soil was permeable. The liquid from the landfill contained chemicals with elevated concentrations of metals and ammonia. Gas from the landfill was detected off site. North Shore Gas North Plant has was contaminated with residuals the past plan operations. North Shore Gas South Plant includes 1.9 acre former MGP facility along Pershing Road and bordering areas where MGP residuals are now found. MGP’s are industrial facilities that produced gas from coal, oil, and other

Alex Lin and many other teen activists trying to stop toxins from getting into the ground. These toxins can get into natural resources and water systems. Computer chemicals such as lead, mercury, and caldeum are to the human body. When computers are recycled and softly disarranged and recycle, but when they're thrown out they are gathered and put in landfills and dangerously seep into the ground. There is so much electronic waste they have to be cared with bulldozers and many other heavy machinery. This machinery is very expensive. People that throughout computers can just put it the blue bin instead of the green. Also these landfills are ugly sites. Landfills are in places like the outskirts of cities. They create ugly toxic hills that will be placed in the poorer parts of the city (outskirts). Theas landfills have tubes in the ground so the toxins can be released so the ground does not blow up. These toxins are released into the ground and the air for people to breathe. Finally, when People hat breathe this air can become very

The purpose of the landfill was to bury the large amount of contaminated the soil with toxic Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), a class of chemicals so toxic that Congress banned production later. The whole story began in 1973 when Ward PCB Transformers Company dumped more than 30,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil on the side of state roads in 14 North Carolina counties. The trucker, who was responsible for taking the oil to a facility to be recycled, disposed of it discreetly and illegally. The person in charge of the company and the trucker was sent to jail for a short time for their negligence on the matter. Contaminants left in the truck and factory was detoxified. However, the area around the factory as well as the lakes and rivers close to the road had been polluted. As a result, more than 60,000 tons of oils were polluted with toxic PCB.

Workers were cleared to return work in nearby buildings b ring told by the EPA that the air was safe to breath and the water was safe to drink, and that there was no excess concerns. However, tests were later shown to have unsafe levels of fiberglass, Asbestos that settled onto rooftops and streets. further testing from the USGS proved that the dust in the air and on the ground was as corrosive as drain cleaner. But more chemicals that

After the defeat with the sole use of the popular epidemiology technique, Lois Gibbs and the Homeowners Association decided to take a different approach when confronting the state. The Association elaborated that the toxic chemicals were “an attack on the nuclear family, as the toxic contamination threatened reproduction and homes” (Hay, “Everyone's Backyard: The Love Canal Chemical Disaster”). They showed that the chemicals were affecting the way the household should run, by hindering the reproduction process, and that the families who have not relocated should, in order to preserve the “[way of life]”. As the past attempts have failed, this effort too failed to get all community members relocated (Hay, “Everyone's Backyard: The Love Canal

Water contamination is the next major concern of environmental groups. The Environmental Protection Agency, the governmental regulatory agency created in 1970 to manage the enforcement of environmental policy, states its concerns in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2009 (United). Specifically addressing mines in West Virginia and Kentucky, the EPA expressed serious concerns over water pollution from strip mining (“EPA”). The rupture of an ash dike at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, TN on December 22, 2008 granted credibility to the EPA’s concerns. In an article published by in Environmental Health Perspectives, Rhitu Chatterjee comments on the poisonous substances contained in ash produced from processing coal, listing

The ancient Greek culture and the Egyptians only survived for about two thousand years. The United States has been a country for only about two hundred and thirty nine years. In ten thousand years the United States may or may not be around. This is significant because a nuclear waste site will be dangerous for a span of ten thousand years. The WIPP, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, is a nuclear waste site that is the result of testing nuclear weapons from the United States government. The United States citizens must be protected from the radioactive wastes being regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. (1)The primary goal of the WIPP is to create a sustainable marker or message to warn the citizens of America, and to any future generations, about the harmful site. The markers and messages must be able to last for ten thousand years so future humans will be aware of the dangers the area contains. Due to the nuclear testing, the WIPP will mark the hazardous nuclear waste that remains in New Mexico for a period of ten thousand years.

Background: The Ottawa Radiation Areas, located in LaSalle County, Illinois, consists of 16 areas, contaminated by radioactive materials. The 16 areas are scattered throughout the city of Ottawa as well as locales outside the city. They've been added to the National Priorities List (NPL) as one site, because they are contaminated by the same wastes, involve the same potentially responsible parties (PRPs), and require cleanup activities for the same media. It's believed that the contamination originated from the processing of wastes and demolition debris from the Radium Dial Co. from 1918 to 1936 and Luminous Processes, Inc. from 1937 to 1978. These businesses produced luminous dials for clocks and watches, using radium-based paint.