EPA choice should favor common sense
One of President Trump’s best appointments was placing Scott Pruitt in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has long championed common sense. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, he frequently sued the EPA and other agencies for abusing their authority.
Now he faces pressure over a Superfund site, a contaminated landfill in Missouri. Special interests demand an excessive $695 million remediation plan. But another remedy, favored even by former President Obama’s EPA, would cost about $75 million. Pruitt must decide what plan to follow.
The former 200-acre West Lake landfill is in Bridgeton, near St. Louis. Decades ago, tons of leached barium sulfate cake residue were dumped there by a chemical plant that processed material for the Manhattan Project during World War II. This residue has low-level radioactivity — so low that it barely differs from natural background radiation.
Some residents blame this for causing cancer and other illnesses. But every state and federal study, including by the Centers for Disease Control, has confirmed the radiation is too low to harm human health. No link to cancer or disease has been found.
Just the same, proper safeguards are good. But activists and protesters have dragged things out for years with excessive demands. Refusing to accept the science, activists insisted on further testing and then retesting. Consistently, results prove their claims are invalid. Yet their scare tactics continue.
“Radioactive waste is killing our residents,” exaggerates local state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal. She has a history of inflammatory statements and recently was censored by Missouri’s Senate for saying, “I hope Trump is assassinated.” She also stirred up hostility during the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri.
Chappelle-Nadal not only pushes an exorbitant remediation plan but also wants the government to buy out scores of homeowners. That $695 million plan would excavate the landfill, then ship 1.8 billion cubic yards elsewhere. Home buyouts would cost extra.
More sensible is the $75 million plan recommended by Obama’s EPA but delayed by protests. A January EPA redraft of its final feasibility study reendorses this plan, concluding that it “fully meets the criteria of protecting human health and the environment.” Instead of digging up and relocating 200 acres, a protective cover would cap the landfill. All hazardous material would be permanently prevented from migrating into soil, air or groundwater.
Pruitt promises an immediate decision of which plan to follow. He faces certain political backlash if he makes the obvious decision to cap the landfill instead of excavating 1.8 billion cubic yards and finding some other place to put it. And then placing a cap over it in the new spot.
Chappelle-Nadal often resorts to race-baiting, so a rejection of her plans could spark false accusations that racism is involved. Bridgeton, however, is 70 percent white. Environmental activists also are poised to condemn Pruitt. Extremists know no limits in their hatred of him, as proven by numerous death threats.
But Pruitt has never lacked courage. This decision is his chance to demonstrate again his commitment to common sense. The right choice will do more than fix this landfill; it also will help drain the swamp in Washington.