Underground fire 300 meters from nuclear waste causes St. Louis to hatch contingency

[Tim Sharp]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201.../#.VhcGbn3KOvk

FYI. Thought this might be of interest since many of us will be in St Louis in the future. Maybe Houston and Detroit aren't such a bad idea for CMP

ST. LOUIS – Beneath the surface of a St. Louis-area landfill lurk two things that should never meet: a slow-burning fire and a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste, separated by just 300 meters.

Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially “catastrophic event” that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city’s main airport.

Although the fire at Bridgeton Landfill has been burning since at least 2010, the plan for a worst-case scenario was developed only a year ago and never publicized until this week, when St. Louis radio station KMOX first obtained a copy.

County Executive Steve Stenger cautioned that the plan “is not an indication of any imminent danger.”

“It is county government’s responsibility to protect the health, safety and well-being of all St. Louis County residents,” he said in a statement.

Landfill operator Republic Services also downplayed any risk. Interceptor wells — underground structures that capture below-surface gases — and other safeguards are in place to keep the fire and the nuclear waste separate.

“County officials and emergency managers have an obligation to plan for various scenarios, even very remote ones,” landfill spokesman Russ Knocke said in a statement, calling the landfill “safe and intensively monitored.”

The cause of the fire is unknown. For years, the most immediate concern has been an odor created by the smoldering. Republic Services is spending millions of dollars to ease or eliminate the smell by removing concrete pipes that allowed the odor to escape and installing plastic caps over parts of the landfill.

Directly next to Bridgeton Landfill is West Lake Landfill, also owned by Republic Services. The West Lake facility was contaminated with radioactive waste from uranium processing by a St. Louis company known as Mallinckrodt Chemical. The waste was illegally dumped in 1973 and includes material that dates back to the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb in the 1940s.

The Environmental Protection Agency is still deciding how to clean up the waste. The landfill was designated a Superfund site in 1990.

The proximity of the two environmental hazards is what worries residents and environmentalists. At the closest point, they are 1,000 to 1,200 feet apart (305 to 365 meters).

If the underground fire reaches the waste, “there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be released in the smoke plume and spread throughout the region,” according to the disaster plan.

The plan calls for evacuations and development of emergency shelters, both in St. Louis County and neighboring St. Charles County. Private and volunteer groups, and perhaps the federal government, would be called upon to help, depending on the severity of the emergency.

No reports of illness have been linked to the nuclear waste. But the smell caused by the underground burning is often so foul that Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster sued Republic Services in 2013, alleging negligent management and violation of state environmental laws. The case is scheduled to go to trial in March.

Last month, Koster said he was troubled by new reports about the site. One found radiological contamination in trees outside the landfill’s perimeter. Another showed evidence that the fire has moved past two rows of interceptor wells and closer to the nuclear waste.

Koster said the reports were evidence that Republic Services “does not have this site under control.” Republic Services responded by accusing the state of intentionally exacerbating “public angst and confusion.”

Ed Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment said he would like to see the county become even more involved “to ensure that businesses, schools, hospitals and individuals know how to respond in a possible disaster at the landfill, just like preparing for an earthquake or tornado.”

Underground smoldering is not unheard of, especially in abandoned coal mines. Common causes include lightning strikes, forest fires and illegal burning of waste.

At least 98 underground mine fires in nine states were burning in 2013, according to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Few underground fires can match one in Centralia, Pennsylvania. In 1962, a huge pile of trash in the town dump, near a coal mine, was set on fire, and it has burned beneath the town for more than half a century. Only a few people remain in a community that once had 1,000 residents.

[techhelpbb]

Sounds like a bright blue glowing good time to me

[Hallry]

Just out of courtesy, you might want to site the source where you copied this story form.

[FrankJ]

Sounds like a game hint to me. We already have lots of yellow totes as a game piece.

[pabeekm]

Sounds like a bright blue glowing good time to me

Sounds like a game hint to me. We already have lots of yellow totes as a game piece.

Is it bad that my first instinct here is to crack jokes about mixtapes and magic smoke?

Only in FIRST do we find the possibility of radioactive fallout so amusing.

[Tim Sharp]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Just out of courtesy, you might want to site the source where you copied this story form.

Done. Sorry.

[BenGuy]

That would have been interesting... Radioactive smoke over an airport and major city right in the middle of the US..... That would have been bad.

[GaryVoshol]

Detroit should be good - old salt mines don't burn.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Detroit should be good - old salt mines don't burn.

Famous last words?

[Greg Needel]

maybe that explains what happens at the end of this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOGRR_mjNXg

[Briansmithtown]

Fallout 5 confirmed.

[logank013]

The landfill fire has been burning since 2010? Does that not concern anyone? It rains in St. Louis so shouldn't the fire already be out? Or is this a purposeful controlled fire set by the landfill to reduce trash and make more space for the landfill? I was just really confused since nobody in that city seems to care about this landfill fire.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by logank013

The landfill fire has been burning since 2010? Does that not concern anyone? It rains in St. Louis so shouldn't the fire already be out?

It doesn't rain underground.

There are about a hundred such underground fires known to be burning in the US right now. One of them started over 50 years ago. They are definitely cause for concern, and it's a very good idea to keep monitoring them.

[logank013]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It doesn't rain underground.

There are about a hundred such underground fires known to be burning in the US right now. One of them started over 50 years ago. They are definitely cause for concern, and it's a very good idea to keep monitoring them.

Right. So why are the landfills underground? I understand burying them but do they just decide to put them in caves and leftover abandon coal mines so they don't have to dig a hole in the ground? And how does a flame simply last that long? Lots of fuel I guess..

[Ryan_Todd]

First, a few reading resources:
http://www.ejnet.org/landfills/
and
http://dnr.mo.gov/bridgeton/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lake_Landfill

Now, the executive summary:

The Bridgeton landfill was originally a limestone quarry, which means that there were never any caves or tunnels at the site; just a really huge hole in the ground. They laid some pipes for collecting any nasty chemicals that could leach out over time, then sealed off the sides and bottom with clay and/or plastic, and proceeded to dump trash into this great big hole in the ground until the trash was more than than 150 feet deep. Whenever any section of a landfill was filled up, that section was "capped off" in much the same way that the bottom and sides of the landfill were sealed, and then they moved on to the next section.

Over time, the particular mixture of waste that gets dumped into a landfill begins to decompose and liquefy and undergo a whole host of chemical reactions to produce some of the nastiest substances out there. In general, this stuff likes to burn but doesn't have enough oxygen to do so; dirt is slightly permeable to oxygen, however, and bulk waste even more so. As such, once any part of a landfill has caught fire, the area underneath will burn and spread underground in the same way that charcoal does once you've smothered the fire itself: it simply glows and oxidizes and therefore burns extremely slowly without an open flame.

Subsurface fires are almost impossible to put out, as demonstrated by the case of the Centralia coal mine fire that has been burning for more than 50 years; even once all of the surface fires were doused and all of the mine tunnels were sealed off to prevent oxygen from feeding the flames, the coal continued to smolder and burn underground. The only feasible way to deal with an underground fire is to contain it as best as possible and let it burn itself out; in the case of the Centralia fire, veins of coal stretch out and down through soil and stone in all directions, providing far more fuel for the fire than could ever have been excavated by mine workers even if the mine hadn't been closed off. In the case of the Bridgeton landfill, the entire thing is essentially no different from single a giant lump of coal burning slowly from the inside out; so far, all efforts to prevent the spread of the "fire" under the "ground" have been ineffective.