ST. LOUIS—The EPA says work to excavate nuclear waste from the West Lake landfill in Bridgeton could begin as soon as 2027, two years earlier than an internal agency timeline.

That news came with the release Monday of an informal assessment requested last month by EPA administrator Lee Zeldin after he toured the landfill and other St. Louis locations, calling it the most moving visit of his brief tenure leading the agency after meeting with residents who have been impacted by nuclear contamination in the region, either from the landfill or in the Coldwater Creek watershed.

The landfill has been a Superfund site since 1990, 17 years after atomic waste from the Manhattan Project era was illegally dumped there. A number of plans have been announced over time without a firm timetable released to the public for starting work on remediation. The first Trump administration announced a plan in 2018 to remove some of the radioactive material and cap the rest.

In January, the Biden administration said the price tag to do it would rise to nearly $400 million after teams discovered contamination was more widespread–adding up to another 20,000 cubic yards. Inflation also added to the cost. 

Zeldin’s charge, delivered last month was to come up with “the most ambitious timeline possible, what we need in order to hit it… what are barriers that are in front of you that need to get torn down.”

The assessment lays out a timeline of events that has to be hit to stay on track.

“The EPA and the PRPs (Potentially Responsible Parties) have been working to find ways to accelerate completion of the Remedial Design and the start of the cleanup actions, including potentially initiating pre-excavation confirmation sampling while the Remedial Design is being completed. Conducting confirmation sampling during the Remedial Design phase accelerates the completion of that activity from July 2028 to March 2026,” the document says.

“As a result of this work, the start of excavation is projected to be accelerated by approximately 12 to 18 months and begin as soon as late 2027 as noted above. This time savings is due to the PRPs and the EPA completing key tasks concurrently and identifying document review efficiencies. This accelerated timeline is tentative and subject to change,” it continued.

After meeting with residents last month, Zeldin pledged the assessment within 21 days and said that more resources would be brought to bear on the landfill project.

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

Advocates welcomed the new timeline.

“We are thrilled to finally have a starting year timeframe to go off of and an expedited timeline to force completion of the site work! For far too long this site has been allowed to poison our community and most importantly our children,” Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STL, an advocacy group told Spectrum News. “This community has fought so hard for this clean up and we are so thankful to be able to say the end is in sight!!”