BRIDGETON, Mo.—The new head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is pledging additional resources to the effort to clean up the Superfund site at the West Lake landfill as the St. Louis region continues to grapple with the legacy of nuclear contamination dating back to its involvement with the development of nuclear weapons since World War II.

Lee Zeldin, who promised Missouri U.S. Senator Josh Hawley he would visit the site if confirmed as EPA administrator, did so on Monday, along with a stop along Coldwater Creek and time spent with advocates for radiation victims.

Zeldin, a former New York congressman, called the meeting with victims at Bridgeton’s City Hall, the most moving he’s had since he assumed his new role, marked by Debbie Neuman, of Bridgeton, who shared the series of health challenges she’s attributed to living in proximity to the landfill, which has been home to illegally dumped nuclear waste since the 1970s.

It’s been a Superfund site for decades, but work to do the actual remediation has not begun. In January, the EPA said the cost to do it will rise from $229 to $392 million due to the need to excavate more of the site, and because of inflation.

There is no firm start date.

“I don’t think you can ever truly be prepared for a conversation where someone in the local community is sharing what seems to be a community’s worth of health issues and it’s all just one person,” Zeldin said of hearing Neuman’s experiences.

The agency, like others across the federal government, has looked to cut costs amid efforts coordinated with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, efforts.

Zeldin said the DOGE recommendations so far have translated into billions of dollars in cuts in a reorganization that he hopes leads to more direct support for communities in need of cleanup.

“My goal is that if a dollar that is spent that the dollar is spent on directly remediating the environmental issue. I do not want to see a dollar spent to some group to tell us that we have an issue that needs to get dealt with,” he said, referring to the Biden administration’s financial support of environmental justice organizations. 

He also pledged that federal layoffs would not be an impediment to the work done here and suggested that personnel could be moved from other departments.

“My commitment here now is that moving forward we'll have more people working on this than ever before," he said at a meeting with advocates at Bridgeton City Hall. “This is about making sure that we have the ability to provide more assistance to this community and not less.” 

Zeldin tasked a regional EPA administrator with coming up with a brief report over the next three weeks that describes the challenges and resources necessary to act on “the most ambitious timeline possible.”

That report will be made public, Zeldin said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and not the EPA, is responsible for cleanup efforts in the Coldwater Creek watershed. Work there could extend into the late 2030s.

Hawley and Zeldin walked along the creek at St. Cin Park in Hazelwood, where signs now stand warning the public that there is radioactive soil present but there’s no health risk if the ground is left undisturbed.

Severe weather caused severe damage to the immediate area, uprooting trees. An arcing powerline appeared to cause a small brushfire Friday that scorched a portion near one of the signs.

An Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson said the agency was surveying all known areas of contamination in the watershed to determine if there was any resulting spread. The agency has insisted that testing following flooding events in the region has not shown evidence that the contamination had moved.

The visits underscored Hawley’s push to reauthorize and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, legislation that pays the medical costs for victims of radiation exposure as well as survivor benefits. Legislation authorizing the payouts hit a sunset last June. Hawley wants the program expanded to include parts of Missouri in addition to other areas ranging from New Mexico and Utah to Ohio and Kentucky. The bill passed the Senate twice in the last session but never got a House vote in part because of cost concerns.

Zeldin hinted Monday that the money found through DOGE savings could give Hawley a bargaining chip when it comes to getting the bill over the finish line.

“Music to my ears,” Hawley said.