Environmentalists v. Obama's EPA

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

Charles Sauer

Mar 30, 2016

 

There's good news for environmentalism coming out of St. Louis, near the radioactive West Lake Landfill: The community is safe, the EPA has a clean-up plan, and the company that owns the landfill is even paying for it. No one could stop this kind of progress!

 

Except, as it turns out, for a group of environmental extremists who think that isn't good enough. They're trying to stop the current EPA cleanup plan and restart the process by transferring the authority of the site to the Army Corps of Engineers.

 

Located about 20 miles from St. Louis, West Lake Landfill served as a limestone quarry when it originally opened in 1939. In the 1970s, the abandoned quarry became a dumping ground for illegally disposed-of Manhattan Project radioactive leftovers. The illicit disposals by third parties eventually came to light, and in 1990, it came under the Environmental Protection Agency's umbrella as a Superfund site– a contaminated area marked for special clean-up after a natural disaster or other environmental emergency.

 

Superfund is a good program, though it's not known for its efficiency: It's taken more than 25 years to produce a plan to clean up West Lake. Slow and steady wins the race, I suppose, and at least there is now a plan to fix the problem. Best of all, tests show there's been no contamination to the local community.

 

Good, right?

 

(Snip)